


Your Bones are Held Together (By Your Nightmares)

by VeteranKlaus



Series: All is Well (I Did Them Worse) [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Animal Eating, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Cannibalism, Dark Ben Hargreeves, Dark Klaus Hargreeves, Dark Take on Powers and Death, Disturbing Themes, Essentially Klaus is a Zombie, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Manipulation, Murder, Self-Mutilation, The Apocalypse, Undead Klaus Hargreeves, Unsettling, autocannibalism, graphic content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 14:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22497820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: Brushing aside the fact that Klaus just saved the entire world, the siblings all decide to start making an effort to heal old wounds and ensure that the Apocalypse does not come back to for round two.Klaus is a little distracted with his recent resurrection and how it seems to differ from every other one, and the answer as to why makes itself clear soon enough.
Relationships: Dave/Klaus Hargreeves
Series: All is Well (I Did Them Worse) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618582
Comments: 370
Kudos: 817





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the sequel to 'It's All Over But The Crying' and I heavily suggest you read that first! If you have, then please heed the tags and continue, and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> No warnings for this chapter.

“So, she’s off her meds now - completely.”

Five’s voice rose above the incomprehensible muttering of everyone else, followed quickly by a short cough to clear his throat. It gathered everyone’s attention, turning all eyes onto him, and he continued to speak without missing a beat.

“Which, of course, helped her adapt to her powers a bit better than the whole mess that was previously.” He gave a pause, dull eyes turning to look at Vanya. She nodded her head, sitting a little upright what with attention now on her.

“Yeah,” she agreed. Ever uncomfortable with being the victim of attention, her eyes bounced down to stare at her hands, as if her knuckles and her nails had suddenly become a hundred times more interesting than anyone around her or the conversation at hand – not that Klaus could really blame her, what with the chipped nail polish on his own nails looking rather interesting as well. “I feel… much better. I’m not as overwhelmed like – like before.” Klaus watched as her lips twitched, curling upwards in the faintest of smiles. “It’s nice.”

Five’s head bobbed approvingly and he turned his gaze to sweep it over the rest of his siblings, spread out around the living room. Diego stood by the fireplace, his gaze flicking between the flames and his siblings, as if distracted or just simply not overly interested; meanwhile Luther seemed to contrast him, leaning forwards in his chair and looking _too_ interested in it, his face serious and hands clasped together. Allison’s nails were tapping absentmindedly on the mug of coffee hugged between her hands and she wore an easy expression.

Ben – he sat next to Klaus, unseen by everyone else, and Dave sat on Klaus’ other side – also unseen by everyone else. Ben didn’t seem overly interested – his thoughts were elsewhere, as they seemed to have been since everything had calmed down the day Vanya had killed him, and almost everyone else – and sometimes he would fix Klaus with an odd expression, his eyes narrowed as if he might be able to peer through Klaus and see his soul.

Klaus understood what he was thinking – at least to some extent. That last resurrection from the dead had been an… odd one. Drastically different to every other revival and neither of them could quite place their finger upon what had changed, save for the obvious – Klaus seemed rather dead. All signals pointed to Klaus being a walking corpse. He had no heartbeat, no pulse, and his skin was paler than usual, somehow, and freezing to the touch. In the past week he had hardly slept more than a handful of hours altogether and he seemed to thrive despite it.

Nothing really seemed to be an issue, however, so Klaus wasn’t really concerned about this. He didn’t have a pulse, but nor did Ben or Dave. He wasn’t special.

“So,” said Five, snapping him from his thoughts. “Now that Vanya’s accumulated to them a bit, I believe we should start training. I managed to find some of Dad’s notes that he had tucked away in his office and I believe it’s best if we follow how he trained her.” His left hand rose in the air and, with a brief flash of blue, a book appeared in his hand. “None of her training was harmful or rigorous, but it did seem to work, so I don’t see why we should try to find a different way and risk doing something wrong.”

Vanya nodded her head when Five sent a glance her way. “We start slow,” he said, “and work our way up. Ease you into it. We’ll have at least two people around during your training on the off chance something might go wrong, and I’d probably be the best at doing something to avert or help in that kind of a situation.”

Klaus pursed his lips, drumming his fingers over his leather-clad thigh. “It’s as if he thinks _he_ saved the world,” he muttered, glancing between both Ben and Dave. Ben scoffs, slumping into the couch and unwinding a little.

“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about your ability to just jump out of your grave and hug the Apocalypse away again,” returned Ben, quirking an eyebrow at him. Klaus rolled his eyes.

“You don’t know that,” he said. “Maybe I unlocked a new power-“

“Klaus, are you even paying attention?”

Klaus lifted his head, fixing a glare on Luther. “Of course, this is just so _thrilling_ to listen to,” he drawled sarcastically. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair and sat upright rather than the increasingly-slumped position he was in as he continued to slide further and further down the chair throughout the entire meeting. “ _Yes_ , I am.”

“Actually,” Five perked up. He leaned forwards, dropping the book of Vanya’s notes on the coffee table. He turned his attention to Klaus in the form of hawk-like eyes that never ceased to unnerve Klaus; they were like the eyes of someone way too old, stuck in that thirteen year-old body of his. If anyone had any doubts about Five or the things he said, all they had to do was look at those eyes.

Eyes of a time-travelling genius assassin, Klaus supposed, eying briefly the apparitions hovering constantly around Five’s shoulders.

“There’s something about you, too,” he stated. Klaus raised his eyebrows.

“Little ol’ _moi_? Pray tell, what are you so curious about?”

“You died,” he stated, blunt as ever, despite the way Vanya twitched at the words, her face crumpling in guilt and her gaze going back down to her hands. “You were dead. No pulse. And yet here you are, right as rain.”

Klaus hummed, tipping his head side to side. “Correct you are, how observant,” he commented. Five gave him an unamused look, deadpan.

“It wasn’t Diego that brought you back,” he continued on. “And your neck isn’t broken – it’s not even bruised.”

“Correct again.” Klaus stuck two fingers in the air as if keeping score before dropping his hand and shrugging. “So what about it?”

“What about it?” Luther echoed incredulously. “You were dead, Klaus.”

“I’m very aware of that, thank you, I am the one in question that died.”

“So how did you come back?” Five asked, eyes narrowed in scrutiny. Klaus hummed, his eyes flicking away. He eyed the spots on the walls where portraits of Reginald ought to hang, but since the Academy had been rebuilt following his and Vanya’s fight and since everyone had moved in in some kind of attempt to reform their family bonds, or whatever, they had kept all of the portraits of Reginald down. Klaus preferred the empty spaces.

Perhaps he could get back into art and hang his own paintings up in their stead. Yes, he thought that could be quite nice. A painting of some beautiful corpses that liked to follow him about, and maybe even one of the mausoleum if he felt like spicing it up. He could paint a portrait of God.

“Klaus, _how_?” Five reiterated, clicking his fingers as if he were a dog ignoring him petulantly. Klaus’ curled his lips up as if in some mock snarl.

“Christ, don’t get your panties in a twist, old man,” he muttered, holding his hands up in mock-surrender. “It’s a powers thing. You know, Number Four can conjure the dead – well, apparently little Number Four can also take little trips to the Other Side and get kicked back out by an ethnically-ambiguous little girl he believes may or may not be God or the closest thing to it.”

Five stared at him. In fact, everyone was staring at him. Klaus stared back.

“You’ve never been great with explaining things, to be fair. I don’t know what they expected,” said Ben. Klaus gave him a glare, tempted to manifest him simply so he could hit him, but he refrained on the simple fact that Ben’s presence was still unknown by the rest of their siblings. He hadn’t conjured him earlier, and the few seconds of which he had been manifested during his fight with Vanya had been swift and everyone had been a little distracted to identify the flying blue figure slamming into the wall as their beloved deceased brother.

“You can come back from the dead?” Said Diego. His eyebrows were raised in scepticism and Klaus gave him a deadpan look.

“Yes,” he said. “That is what I just said and what you saw for yourself first-hand.”

“How many times have you done that?” Five asked. Klaus shrugged.

“A few times,” he said. Ben snorted.

“You were nearing seventy, I think.”

Klaus gave him a look, nose twitching.

“You’ve – you’ve died multiple times?” Vanya asked, eyes widening. Klaus hummed.

“It’s no big deal, really. It’s like if Five came through and said there were alternate dimensions in which we were both five years old and fifty years old at the same time – a casual Five thing to say. This is a casual Klaus thing.” His shoulders bounced in a shrug once more.

“Is there a limit on how you can die and come back?” Five asked, curious.

“Not that I know of,” he answered. “Little Girl God said there’s a time for it, but if it’s not that time then I’m just bouncing between realms, really. It’s honestly not that big a deal.”

“It is,” said Diego. “You just – died and came back!”

“And? What do you want me to do about it?” Klaus snorted. “It’s a simple fact, like how you can throw a knife and have it hit the sign of the McDonald’s two streets down from here.” He held his hands up in innocence. “It’s just me, baby. Dead people things.”

Diego made a face at that before looking away, his lips pressed tightly together.

“At least that clears that up,” Five muttered, scrubbing a hand down his jaw. “Okay, and the last thing is the Commission. I’m not sure what their next move will be, but they are still out there and I’d expect that they’ll be after us. They’ve already given us a week; I don’t doubt they have hell to pay at the office. But I want everyone on alert for any signs of the Commission or of Hazel and Cha-Cha, the ones that shot us up looking for me.”

Klaus giggled quietly. Even Ben smirked, looking down.

“What? What is it, Klaus?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing, nothing,” Klaus hummed, flapping one hand in a dismissive gesture. Five narrowed his eyes at him.

“Hazel and Cha-Cha,” he repeated, and Klaus’ hardly-restrained smirk stretched a little wider, like a child failing to contain their giggles in a classroom after being scolded. “You’ve met them.”

“We had a little discussion, you could say,” Klaus confirmed.

“What?” Luther asked, tone full of suspicion. Klaus rolled his eyes.

“Not as if I’m on their side, dumbass. After they shot up the house, they found me and we got into a little fight. The whole _I can see all of your past victims and I can pop back up from the dead_ thing gave them a right scare. It was funny.”

He decided to leave the part about Ben’s Horrors beating the shit out of them out. He thought that he’d given them more than enough information about himself and his powers for one day.

Five pressed his lips together, curious, thoughtful, then turned his head slightly away and nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Now that’s out of the way, that’s all I have to say.”

Silence stretched as everyone eyed one another to see if there were any additions to this meeting, but everyone seemed perfectly satisfied. So, with that, they began to disperse. Klaus headed to his bedroom accompanied by Dave, Ben instead heading outside to sit in the courtyard and probably read.

Klaus was fine with that. He treasured the time alone he had with Dave; able to close the bedroom door and manifest him just in time to throw himself onto him, wrapping his cold body around him like a cobra. Dave, too, seemed to have little reservations about that; his nose nudged the top of Klaus’ head and then followed the touch with his lips.

“You’ve hardly slept, love,” he murmured. “You should try and get some rest.”

Klaus groaned. Sleep was coming less and less easier to him and he really could not be bothered with it; but, at least it gave him an excuse to lay his head upon Dave’s chest, entangle their legs together beneath the covers and at least rest while Dave ran his fingers through his hair.

He didn’t sleep, but it was comforting and he could almost convinced himself that he was back in ‘Nam, and they were both alive and everything was nearly picturesque.

###

One other thing to change following his resurrection was his relationship with food.

Usually, Klaus found himself starving like a madman after he died. He would scoff down whatever food he had in his kitchen that was remotely edible, and then he would storm across to John’s apartment and either knock until he let him in or he’d pick the lock himself if he was out, and he’d raid his kitchen and almost eat it empty, too.

Now, though, Klaus had eaten hardly two meals since his resurrection.

He didn’t know why it had changed so, but everything smelt and tasted and felt absolutely repulsive. He had thrown up both times he had eaten, as if one might if they had ingested rat poison and their body knew that it needed rid of that immediately. He could hardly bring food to his mouth, let alone get it down his throat.

The thing was; he did feel hungry. He got increasingly hungrier with each passing day that he didn’t eat, but he was beginning to doubt that forcing himself to keep down a meal would even help. If anything, he had the feeling it would only make him feel even worse, somehow.

The feeling left something strange in his guts. He knew that there was probably something deeper to this than some weird after-effects of coming back from the dead, but he couldn’t place it and so he could do nothing about it but craft up clever lies whenever his family settled down for dinner.

He could avoid lunch easily, since they never sat down to have it together. He could lie to everyone, say he had eaten at some point and they simply hadn’t seen him, and sometimes he could get out of dinner if he’d been out that day – typically at his old apartment, going through his belongings to bring some back to the Academy or visiting John – by saying he’d eaten then, but then there were the days that he couldn’t get out of it.

Diego’s hand clapped down upon Klaus’ shoulder like a vice. “Come on, bro,” he said, “Mom’s making lasagne.”

Klaus hummed. “Oh, sounds delicious, but I’m not hungry.” He tried, and failed, to wiggle free of Diego’s grip.

“Nonsense,” he said. “I’ve not seen you eat anything at all today, and you look like you’ve lost weight. Come on.”

Klaus narrowed his eyes at Diego, now succeeding in freeing himself from his grasp. “Fine,” he relented, and he followed him into the kitchen.

The smell – oh, it burned his nostrils like napalm. Grace set out a generous portion in front of him and he stared at it like maggots might burst forth from it and crawl about his plate. The sound of cutlery chinking against the dishes and against teeth seemed to roar in his ears, almost as loud as the sound of echoing, steady heartbeats that, as days passed, only seemed to get louder to Klaus.

He picked up his fork, twisting it between his fingers. The metal seemed like but a feather in his grasp. He stabbed it into the lasagne and steam puffed out.

Klaus almost gagged.

He’d never had such a strong reaction to food before, and he’d eaten some horrific things during his time on the streets. He’d eaten straight from dumpsters and swallowed it down with little more than a grimace. And yet, here he was, with a plate of freshly cooked lasagne – probably gourmet, what with Grace’s cooking, and feeling as if he was staring down at a plate of entrails, though even that seemed more pleasing than this.

When he did bring a piece of food to his lips and forced it onto his tongue, he did gag. He dropped the fork and let it clatter onto the wooden table, hurrying to spit out the lasagne and wash away the taste with the only thing that didn’t upset his stomach; water.

“Klaus? Are you okay?” Vanya asked, and he was suddenly very aware of everyone’s eyes on him. He stood, his chair scraping the floor behind him while he swallowed continuously against the urge to gag.

“Sick,” he grit out, and then he turned around and fled for the bathroom.

He didn’t throw up, though he did spend a ridiculously long amount of time gagging and retching over the toilet bowl, Dave’s hand rubbing his back gently.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, slapping a hand above him to flush the toilet.

“Maybe you’re still adjusting,” Dave offered, moving his hair from his forehead. Klaus leaned into the touch with a sigh, his eyes slipping closed.

“It’s been a while,” he grumbled. “I need to hurry the fuck up and adjust already.” Dave nudged his side gently.

“Just take a breather,” he murmured. Klaus let himself relax against Dave, letting Dave trace patterns on his skin with his fingertips.

Eventually, though, he stirred. “’m gonna brush my teeth,” he mumbled. Dave helped him onto his feet and Klaus fumbled to pull a toothbrush out from the cupboard beneath the sink, applying a generous drop of toothpaste onto it before raising it to his mouth and scrubbing at the poor taste lingering there.

Spitting it out and washing his mouth out, he lifted his head to the mirror and spread his lips in a grin. Then, eyebrows furrowing, he leaned closer to the mirror and hooked his fingers past his lips, tugging them slightly to eye his teeth closer. And then, sharing a look with Dave, he raced to his bedroom.

“I think I’m a vampire.”

Ben looked up from his book with a thoroughly confused expression; his entire face scrunched up and he looked, honestly, just entirely fed up with what was coming out of Klaus’ mouth.

Klaus closed the door behind him and Dave, coming to sit beside Ben. “No, seriously!”

“Klaus,” said Ben slowly. “What the fuck?”

“I’m being serious! Look, it explains it, right?” He tapped his finger to the palm of the opposite hand. “The lack of sleep – vampires don’t need sleep, they’re fucking vampires. The paleness – they’re pale as shit. I can’t eat food because it’s all infused with garlic, or something. And look!” He hooked his fingers in the corner of his lips and pulled them once more, leaning close to Ben.

Ben’s eyes narrowed and he eyed Klaus’ teeth.

“I wouldn’t put it past you to have done that with a nail file,” he replied after a moment. Klaus dropped his hands from his mouth and huffed.

“I did not, I’ll have you know. That was only one time and it didn’t work. But Ben!” He ran his fingertips over his teeth, over each sharp point. “They’re sharp!”

And indeed they were. Whether or not they had been sharpening slowly since his resurrection or something, Klaus hadn’t noticed it until now. His canines in particular, though every tooth seemed to just be… sharp, even if not necessarily looking like some cat’s fang. Pressing the pad of his fingertips to the tip of the point and pushing down; it hurt. He had the faint impression that if he were to bite someone now, his teeth would meet little resistance.

“I can see that,” said Ben. His eyebrows furrowed in genuine thought, then, but all he could come up with was a shrug. “I don’t know. It’s weird, Klaus. This whole situation is weird, but it’s hardly like you having some sharp teeth or a shit sleeping schedule is hurting anyone. Just don’t go about trying to drink people’s blood, or something.”

Klaus folded his arms over his chest. “Well, there go all my plans for tonight, then, bummer.”

Ben gave him a look. Klaus huffed a sigh and fell back into his bed. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Here, I have something for you.”

His hand stretched to the side, digging into the first drawer of his bedside table. He pulled out a book and launched it at Ben’s chest with a force that made his brother jump.

“I might be dead, but that doesn’t give you the right to throw shit at me,” Ben growled.

“It’s a present; I can take it back.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Why?”

“Because, I’m sick of seeing that same book every day.” His foot lifted to nudge Ben’s knee. “Plus, I might just die of boredom and sleep evades me like I evade the law. If you’d be such a dear as to read to me and my ghostly lover, I’d be forever in your debt.”

“You already are,” Ben stated. Nonetheless, Klaus heard him turn the book in his hands to eye both the cover and the back, before finally opening it to its front page. With a victorious grin, his hands found Dave’s wrists and tugged the veteran onto the bed in such a way that Klaus could quite easily manoeuvre himself so he was virtually on top of Dave.

And with the faint warmth of Dave’s body, mingling both with the way he ran his hand through his hair and down his cheek and Ben’s steady voice, the way the pages turned rhythmically, Klaus found it easily to let his body melt and relax; problems about dinner forgotten, and he felt oddly at peace in this situation despite everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what your thoughts are in the comments, so feel free to let me know! <3  
> If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @veteranklaus


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter.

Maybe it was withdrawals, he thought.

He dozed off for what couldn’t’ have been more than two hours, but those two hours were enough for Klaus’ body to decide to start decaying from the inside out – or, at the very least, that’s what it felt like. It took him several moments to peel his eyelids open because they felt heavy, as if there were weights tied to each individual eyelash, pulling them down, down, down.

And when he did sit up, it took him several moments to process where he was, too. He scrubbed a hand down his face and sighed, rubbed his eyes and blinked his vision into clarity.

It was easy to brush it off as withdrawals. He had only smoked weed since his death, but even at that he was quickly being turned away from it; he was no longer having nice, mellow highs in which he could relax and melt into Dave’s side like putty, but he was disassociating after each joint to the point it was thoroughly unsettling and it almost made him panic. He couldn’t quite put it into words; it felt as if he blinked and hours were passing by, slipping from the tips of his fingers; it felt as if he was blacking out and waking up every three seconds, and he really didn’t like it. So even at that, he had slowly begun to smoke less and less; he would have expected that if he was going to have withdrawals, they would have started over a week ago now.

But it was the only thing to explain the heavy fatigue nestled in the marrow of his bones; the blanket of confusion that settled over his brain and morphed everything as he processed it and left him trying to make sense of nonsensical things.

Hauling himself into a bath didn’t help, either. Having Dave play with his hair or kiss his neck didn’t help anything but his mood. Nothing seemed to help, and over the following few days it only ever got worse.

He was exhausted, and yet he spent the majority of the day in his bed. At nights Dave would play with his hair and sometimes Ben would read, or they would sit in perfect silence and Klaus would do anything and everything to try and ease him to sleep. Despite the fatigue and the exhaustion, however, he never did fall asleep.

He didn’t even nod off during the day. It felt, once more, as if he was just disassociating; blinking time away and not remembering what had happened, as if his body was trying to replace sleep with it.

Still, the worst part of it all, worse than the exhaustion and the mental confusion, was the hunger.

He felt as if he was starving. His stomach had begun to writhe in furious cramps as if someone had thrust their hand through his flesh, grabbed a fistful of his intestines and his stomach, and squeezed and twisted. It left him breathless and with shaking hands, his jaw locked against the waves of pain.

Not even on the streets had he ever felt as hungry as he did now. And yet the sight and smell of any food made him rush to the toilet to retch, which only ever succeeded in sending his guts into another bout of painful cramps.

All in all, it was utter torture. The only good thing to come from it was that his siblings, following the lasagne incident, truly believed he was sick and stopped trying to coax him down for meals; they let him rest some so long as someone (typically Diego) checked in on him every now and then. Ben read him more of his book, which was nice, and Dave retold stories from their time in ‘Nam and before Klaus had arrived that made Klaus’ ribs bounce with laughter.

It helped only a little.

“Maybe you should go to the hospital,” Ben said, watching as Klaus’ face smoothed out as the cramps in his stomach slowly began to recede.

“Oh,” rasped Klaus. “Because that’s a good idea. The man with no pulse and a tendency to rise from the dead wanders in and says he’s got a case of some stomach bug – that’ll go down smoothly.”

Ben gave him a look, face falling deadpan. “I don’t know what else you can do, Klaus.”

Klaus waved a hand over his shoulder. “Mmm. I’m sure it’ll just… pass,” he murmured, turning onto his stomach and burying his face into his pillow. “Gotta just give it time.”

“You’ve given it time and it keeps getting worse,” Dave commented, his voice ever soft, his words laced with concern. “Maybe you should tell someone else. Grace, or Diego, maybe.”

Klaus grunted. “What’re they gonna do about it?” He reached his hand out, having to take several long moments to focus enough to physically manifest Dave, and then he found Dave’s wrist and guided his hand into his hair. Dave let out a small chuckle, deep in his throat, but almost immediately his fingers began to work and card through his hair in a soothing motion.

“They might be able to help. Grace might know what’s wrong,” he offered.

“I’ll wait it out,” Klaus insisted, his eyes slipping closed once more. His head tilted ever so slightly into Dave’s hand, a pleasurable shiver running down his spine.

“Do you think you might be able to keep food down?”

Klaus moaned pitifully. “You already know the answer to that.”

Dave let out a mournful sounding sigh, his head swaying in a slow nod. “I know, I know,” he murmured sadly He leaned down, hand pausing in his hair for a moment, just enough for him to instead press a gentle kiss to his head. “I’m sure it’ll be alright, darlin’.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Klaus asked. “I die?” He snorted a sharp laugh before twisting to rearrange himself on the bed, pulling himself closer to Dave until he could rest his head on his collar bone. His fingers wandered along his chest and he watched them go, drawing circles on his sun-kissed skin, going along his neck and up to grasp his jaw. He used his hold to tilt his head down while simultaneously leaning up, just enough to press their lips together in a kiss that was soft and gentle.

“Gross,” muttered Ben.

Pulling back to put an inch of space between them, Klaus shot Ben a dark glare. “Literally just fuck off,” he said. Ben gave him an innocent grin and then raised his book as if to say _I’m doing nothing, just peacefully reading_. Klaus hummed sceptically before turning back to Dave. One of his hands were clasped at the back of Klaus’ neck, holding him close, and he couldn’t resist the urge to lean back in and steal another kiss from him.

“See?” He breathed, nudging their noses against one another. “I already feel much better.”

Dave hummed in amusement, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? Is that so?” His voice vibrated against his cheek as his lips traversed across his skin, kissing along the underside of his jaw. Klaus hummed his approval, head tipping back.

“Yeah, it is,” he confirmed, his fingers drumming on Dave’s shoulders. The brunette pressed a kiss to his Adam’s apple, then trailed back up his throat to find his lips. Klaus could feel the way Dave’s lips were turned upwards in a smile and the tiny thing made Klaus smile as well, his chest feeling as if it was full of butterflies.

Klaus settled his head in the crook of Dave’s neck. “I love you,” he murmured. Dave’s hands were heavy and large on his back, holding him in place against his chest just as Klaus’ arms winding around his torso were doing. When Dave spoke, Klaus could feel his throat buzz.

“I love you too, Klaus,” he declared. And despite the many times Klaus had heard him say that, it always sent a thrill through him. He let himself melt against Dave as if his bones had been reduced to nothing but ash, and Dave supported him with ease. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed – he never was, these past few days – but Dave remained manifested and that was all he really cared about.

Eventually, however, Klaus untangled himself from Dave, moving with stiff, reluctant limbs to sit upright. “I think,” he murmured, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “I’m gonna have a bath.”

Dave nodded, letting his hands linger on his wrists. “Go relax,” he said, “I’ll be here with Ben.”

Klaus gave the two of them a grin. “Try not to cause too much trouble, then,” he said. Ben snorted, then shared a scheming look with Dave when Klaus turned his back to them.

He trudged his way to the bathroom, not passing any of his siblings on the way but hearing, faintly, the sounds of their heartbeats downstairs. He didn’t make much of it. He just closed the door, muffling everything else, and then he began to run the bath while rummaging around in the bathroom.

There was some bubble mix, of which he poured a generous amount of it into the bath as it filled up, and there were a few candles he lit too in an attempt to give him some nice atmosphere to relax in. Allison had her nice shampoo, conditioner and body wash there, and he lined them up on the rim of the tub – he was sure she wouldn’t notice some going missing. And then, after a brief glance in the mirror hanging over the sink, he grabbed a razor and shaving cream.

The hot water tingled like electricity against his chilled skin and it worked to ease some of the aches out of his body; gently soothing his unsettled guts. The quiet crackle of the candles around the room succeeded in blocking out the infuriating sound of heartbeats that, for some reason, he was either hallucinating them or suddenly he had an extremely good sense of hearing and could not block them out.

He sank back into the bathtub with a content sigh, eyes slipping closed, and for a long while he just stayed there like that. He used Allison’s nice-smelling toiletries which left his skin smelling like strawberries and feeling as smooth as silk, and his hair like a soft cloud upon his head.

The bath, he decided, was a great idea. He had been so cold, so unearthly cold on a different level, and the water helped warm him up a bit.

His fingers parted through mounds of bubbles lying like a blanket across the surface of the water, making the image of his legs residing below ripple and twist. The candles made the bathroom smell like berries. He rested his hands upon his stomach as if he might be able to gently massage the distant throbbing of hunger below his flesh away, soothe and ease it with gentle touches.

He just hoped that this, whatever his body was deciding to go through, passed quickly. He didn’t know what he could do to help it, realistically, other than laze in his bed, complain loudly to Ben, kiss Dave in between bouts of cramps, and run scorching hot baths every few hours.

His hands lifted out of the water, drops like rain running from his fingertips as he reached for the razor and shaving cream. The razor fell over the edge of the bathtub and Klaus groaned dramatically at the tiny inconvenience; he had found a perfectly comfortable position, curled into the porcelain bathtub. For a brief moment he half considered just yelling for Ben or Dave to come so he could manifest them and make them pick it up for him.

But he mustered the energy within himself to sit upright and lean over the edge, slapping a hand around the floor until he grabbed the razor – only to fling it half-way across the bathroom with a hiss, yanking his hand back to his chest as his face screwed up.

The razor had cut his finger. It was just deep enough to draw blood and, all of a sudden, that was all he could smell. No strawberry body wash, no berry candles; just sharp, metallic copper. The scent seemed to flood the air in the bathroom in a similar way as smoke did whenever he tried to hotbox a room before, and the sight of the little red droplet beading up on his pale skin was hypnotizing. He couldn’t look away as the bead grew into a drop and threatened to overspill and spread throughout the wrinkles in his skin, threatened to run over his finger and dive into the bathtub.

He blinked, snapping out of his daze, and stuck his finger in his mouth without much thought, already turning his gaze to eye the bubble mix with the temptation to add more.

He got distracted, instead, by the way his breath was suddenly stolen from his lungs in a gasp. His mouth flooded with the taste of blood, as if that little droplet had exploded into a sea on his tongue, and his mouth positively watered. It was sweet, unlike it ever had been, and it was the best thing he had ever tasted. It was almost overwhelming; it took him several moments to be able to draw in a steady, deep breath, and to relax his eyebrows from where they had shot up his forehead.

Up until the moment his finger stopped bleeding, he kept it in his mouth as if he physically couldn’t remove it, letting each tiny bead of copper bubble from his skin and instantly dissolve on his tongue. It wasn’t a lot; the cut was small and neat and quick to stop bleeding, and yet it left such a taste in his mouth that it felt as if he had devoured a buffet of food.

And, he noticed curiously, his head felt much clearer. He felt more awake than he had in these past few days where it seemed as if the withdrawals, or the illness, or whatever was going on with him was getting worse. His stomach still throbbed but it became ever so slightly more distant. It was bliss. It almost felt like a sudden high, what with how suddenly everything seemed to just get better.

His hand fell down into the water and his head tipped backwards, something between a sigh and a moan falling from his lips. It felt as if a weight had been taken out of his bones; his mind cleared of the fog that had been plaguing it. He felt less cold, too, the hot water around him suddenly seeping into his skin properly and chasing away that ghostly chill that had been haunting him.

He tried not to think about how he had been nearly writhing with pain only an hour ago and how it only took a tiny droplet of blood to soothe it, and what that might entail. It didn’t matter much anyway; what mattered is that he felt less horrific.

He could finish his bath in more peace, now; able to properly relax and unwind. The storm in his skull settled and the war in his stomach ceased and maybe he truly was high; it seemed impossible for him to go from feeling so utterly horrid to perfectly content. The only thing that might make him feel better would be _more_.

He wasn’t about to entertain the idea, however, that he really was some fucked up kind of vampire, so he relaxed until he felt the water begin to go cold, and only then did he pull the plug, dry himself off and tie a towel around his hips and retreat to his bedroom.

Dave and Ben stopped mid-conversation as he entered. Klaus raised an eyebrow before scrutinising them, trying to decipher whether the expressions on their faces were mischievous or not. Eventually he simply shrugged and fell onto the bed beside Dave once more.

“Feel better?” Dave asked. Klaus hummed, nodding.

“Honestly, much better.”

Dave lit up, a smile stretching his cheeks. “Good!” His hands became solid and his arms draped around Klaus’ shoulders, pulling him into his side. “You look better, too – a little more colour in you.”

Klaus hummed positively. “Maybe I was just cold,” he snorted. Dave shrugged.

“Hopefully,” he murmured, and then his other hand fumbled to pull the blankets of his bed up and coax Klaus beneath them. They manoeuvred into the bed, with Klaus’ back to Dave’s chest, one of Dave’s arms draped over Klaus’ side with his hand resting on his stomach. One of Klaus’ hands covered his, gently squeezing his hand. Dave’s nose brushed his damp curls.

“You smell nice,” he commented. Klaus grinned.

“Thank you! I stole all of Allison’s shower stuff,” he replied, turning his head just enough to catch Dave’s eyes. Dave snorted, propping himself up just enough so that he could lean forwards and press a kiss to the corner of his lips. Klaus’ eyelids fluttered before closing and he twisted so that he could reciprocate the kiss properly. His hand tightened over Dave’s, fingers curling around his hand, and then they both parted and slumped in the bed.

“I think,” said Klaus, “I might be able to fall asleep now.”

Dave’s lips brushed the nape of his neck. “I’ll be right here, doll,” he murmured. Klaus shifted slightly, attempting to push himself further back against Dave as if there was a single inch of space between them that he simply could not allow, and in return Dave tightened his hold on him. Klaus seemed content with their position and so Dave let his fingers trace faint patterns on his stomach until, finally, Klaus’ breathing seemed to even and he got the sleep that seemed to be escaping his grasp for the past two weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, feel free to let me know with a kudos or a comment; I greatly appreciate it all!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: murder, graphic description of cannibalism, blood, violence.

The feeling that overcame him in the bath does not last long. It helps him get some rest and think clearer, puts the stomach cramps at bay for the following day, but that’s about it. All too quickly Klaus found himself back in the same position as before. The fog in his mind, the fatigue, the _hunger_.

The hunger returns with a vengeance. His stomach cramps with cravings for something and he has no idea what it is that his body needs, no idea of what might possibly be able to soothe the battle going on in his body.

“You look like shit,” said Diego, looking up from his lunch (scrambled eggs on toast, and their smell made Klaus’ stomach writhe in unrest) to watch Klaus trudge in with his sights on the cupboard. He swiped down a glass, filling it with water and then leaned against the counter to down it.

“Thanks,” he retorted.

“Ill?” He asked.

“I suppose so.” His fingers drummed along the glass, watched the water ripple.

“Have you tried eating something?” Diego asked. Klaus watched as he lifted a piece of his own breakfast to his mouth, teeth sinking into it.

His stomach rolled.

Quickly, he averted his gaze, wrinkling his nose up. “No,” he said. “I can’t keep anything down and I’d really prefer to keep my guts on the inside.”

Diego made a noise of acknowledgement. Klaus wasn’t sure what was worse; the fact that he could hear the steady, echoing thump of his heartbeat from here as if it were a drum, or the sound of his chewing. It grated on his ears like nails on a chalkboard and he had to resist the urge to clamp his hands down on them or to flinch away from the sound.

“You think it’s serious?”

Klaus shrugged, pursing his lips. “Don’t think so; it’s just a pain in the ass. Where’s everyone else?”

Diego’s eyes flicked to the doorway. “I think Five is currently training with Vanya in the gym. Luther had breakfast earlier, he’s probably kicking about. I think Allison is on the phone with Patrick just now.”

Klaus hummed, eying the doorway. “We have anything important to do today?” He asked. Diego shrugged.

“I sure hope not,” he replied. Klaus snorted quietly, finished the rest of his water and then set the glass inside the sink.

“Good,” he mused, pursing his lips in thought.

“Why? Are you doing something?”

Klaus’ shoulders bobbed in a shrug. “Dunno. Might go get some stuff from my place again to bring here,” he said. He pushed himself off the counter and glided towards the kitchen door, wiggling his fingers over his shoulders. “Au revoir, I’ll see you around.”

“Are you actually doing that?” Ben asked him, materialising by his side and falling into step with him as he made his way towards the door, pulling on his jacket.

“Actually, yes,” he said. He thrust his arms through the sleeves, reached for the door, and promptly froze as his guts twisted. His face screwed up and he held himself up with one hand splayed across the door, his other arm winding around his stomach.

It felt as if his stomach was eating itself; as if his entire body was just attacking itself, waging some stupid war in his guts, his bones serving as the battlefield. It took him several minutes of forcing himself to breathe deeply before the pain began to subside, the rush of blood in his ears to calm down, and he could straighten out once more.

“This has got to stop,” he muttered, exhaling shakily and scrubbing a hand down his face. He threw open the door, stepping out into the warm sunlight. He breathed a sigh of relief, closed his eyes and tilted his head into the sun, and then he carried on down to the street.

It took him longer than usual to reach his apartment. His feet dragged on the pavement behind him and he felt sluggish, as if he had to actively focus on putting one foot in front of the other, and every so often he had to pause and lean against the wall of the nearby building and swallow back the rising waves of nausea. And plus, his head was beginning to pound. As he walked by each person on the street, their heartbeats echoed like thunder in the shell of his ears. That mixed with the smells of the city; it was disorienting and nauseating.

The street food, the bakeries, the coffee shops he passed; his mouth was horrifically dry with how often he had to swallow back his nausea. His skull pounded behind his eyes and nothing sounded more perfect than the idea of curling up on a bed with Dave’s hand soothing his hair.

“You’re almost there, Klaus,” Ben murmured softly, encouraging by his ear. Klaus grunted, nodded jerkily, and pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against and then continued to stagger down the street.

###

“You really look like shit, huh.”

Klaus groaned, head tilting back. “Nice to see you, too,” he said, turning around to face John and his devil cat hanging from his arms.

“Not seen you in a while,” he commented. “Thought you were dead.”

Klaus giggled at that despite himself. “Yeah, well, you know how I am,” he hummed, flashing him a smile. “Might as well be; it’s family bonding time. I’ve kind of moved back in with everyone.” His elbow thumped backwards against his door, nudging it open. “I’m just taking shit from here.”

“Ah,” said John, nodding his head. “Fair enough. Sounds rough.”

“Oh, you don’t even know the half of it. At least I’m away from that thing.” He pointed at the ginger cat in John’s hold and John scowled.

“Hey! That’s my baby you’re talking about,” he said.

“That’s the devil you’re talking about,” Klaus retorted. The cat, as if sensing the argument, hissed at Klaus. Klaus hissed back. John leaned back to open his own door and usher the cat inside, then turned to raise an eyebrow at Klaus.

“Real note, though, you okay?”

Klaus waved a hand dismissively. “As good as I ever am. Hey, you don’t happen to have, uh, heroin, do you?”

John laughed. “You know I don’t do that,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. Klaus deflated, groaning dramatically.

“Meth?”

“No.”

“Crack?”

“No.”

“Acid?”

“ _No_.”

“Then what the fuck do you have?” Klaus moaned. John gave him a sly grin.

“My private stash. Get your own, Hargreeves.”

Klaus pouted petulantly, rolling his eyes. “Christ, you’re so mean,” he whined. “Fine, fine. I’ll get high by myself then, bitch.”

John snorted and Klaus’ own lips quirked upwards . “See you on the other side,” he hummed, then turned to his own apartment.

He had cleared a lot of his belongings, bringing them back to the Academy; mostly clothes and makeup. There were still some things left, however, and it took Klaus all of ten minutes to pry a floorboard out of place, thrust his hand past the cobwebs in the space beneath, and pull out a baggie. He grinned, victorious, and shuffled towards his scarred coffee table.

“You’re dead, Klaus,” said Ben, falling onto an armchair. “You don’t need drugs.”

“I want them, though,” he replied airily. His tongue poked out between his lips in concentration as he poured out the light crystals onto the table, forming them into a perfect little line and snorting it without much hesitation. He rubbed his nose, blinking heavily, and then hauled himself backwards onto his couch.

It hit like heaven and his head fell backwards, thumping against the arm of the couch, and his body followed the downwards trajectory until he was curled awkwardly on the couch, one arm trapped beneath himself and the other limp along his side. He thought that Ben might have said something but he didn’t quite hear it, so he turned his attention away and towards the blissful high instead.

His body melted and the ache in his guts became quickly unimportant and forgotten about, as did the way his bones felt as if they were stuffed with snow; so utterly cold. He was just grateful that this high actually seemed to be working for him, unlike the weed; he felt that, if anything, he really just deserved this little break from reality and whatever illness was plaguing him and his body. It was nice to be able to properly relax.

He couldn’t be sure of how long he stayed there, lying messily across his couch and lost to the feeling of his own mind unravelling, though he did notice that when he reality began to seep back into his consciousness, he was no longer on the couch but lying in the doorway to his bedroom instead.

Ben was lying on his bed. When Klaus made a noise of confusion, he looked up from his book. “You tried to reach your bed and failed,” he told him. The words took several moments to process in his brain and he grunted his acknowledgement when the words finally made sense.

He propped himself up onto his elbows and rubbed his head. “Time ‘s it?”

Ben shrugged helpfully. Klaus groaned, slumping back onto the floor and closing his eyes.

“The others are probably wondering where you are.”

“Don’t care.”

His arms found their way around his throbbing stomach and he curled in around himself slightly, face pinched.

It only seemed to worsen with each passing hour. He despised this feeling.

“They might have a family meeting.”

“Don’t care. Nor do you, actually.”

Ben shrugged. “Not really,” he agreed, “but it might be important. Don’t want Vanya going nuclear again, do we?”

“Could be funny.”

Ben scoffed, closing his book. He eyed Klaus, still uncomfortably curled up on the floor. Once more, he wasn’t entirely sure how long he spent there, either; mind reeling and stomach wavering like a raft on a stormy sea.

When he opened his eyes again, however, it was dark outside. He liked to imagine that he’d gotten some sleep, but he wouldn’t count on it.

He forced himself upright, leaning back against the wall. He rubbed his heavy eyes, ran his hands through his hair, and clung onto the doorway as he found his feet beneath him.

“Feel any better?”

“Ugh,” Klaus moaned. He had, while he was high, but now he was sober and he felt like he was in the middle of some fever dream. He downed a glass of water in his sink though it did very little. The only thing that seemed to be of any use in easing his ailment was getting utterly wasted.

“Well, dear Ben,” he said, words slightly slurring on his tongue. “I think it’s time to go shopping.”

He found money spread out in different places around his apartment – under the sink, in the fridge, in his broken toaster – and then he stuffed it into his pockets and staggered out of his apartment, almost forgetting to lock the door behind him.

“Where to, then?” Ben asked, as if they were simply heading to the shopping centre.

Klaus didn’t reply – acting as if he hadn’t even heard Ben in the first place - counting over the money with him. The numbers were slightly blurry – in fact, everything seemed somewhat hazy to him, as if reality was being filtered through to him through a blanket of alcohol and illness. The lights around him were a blur, unclear and fuzzy, and he could hardly hear the sounds of the cars nearby him over the sound of heartbeats all around him. It sounded like a violent thunderstorm and he could hardly focus on anything else.

He couldn’t remember finding himself in the alleyway, but there he was. A familiar face was at the end, nearly hidden in the shadows, though Klaus’ eyes saw him perfectly.

“Hello again, Klaus,” rasped the man, taking a few steps forwards. “Not seen your face in a while.”

Klaus opened his mouth to reply but found he couldn’t. His throat was dry, his mind elsewhere.

“I’ve got the usual that you buy,” he said, hands dipping into his pockets.

The alleyway there were in were secluded. It was in a shady part of town. If one were to walk by and hear a commotion from the alleyway, they would keep their head down and walk even faster and not even dare risking a glance down the alleyway.

His heartbeat was loud, furious. The man was still talking, rambling about grams and prices, and though Klaus might not know what to do, his body did.

The man’s knuckles were split. As they flexed, blood bubbled up from his skin and the smell drowned everything out.

He lunged forwards with more speed than he had had over the past couple weeks. His arm lifted, pressing against his throat and he slammed him back against the wall. The man let out a sound of surprise, eyes widening. “Klaus-“

His hand came up, pressing under his jaw to force his mouth closed, and his arm pressed down harder upon his throat. He listened to his heartbeat thud louder in fear and it sent a thrill through Klaus’ entire body; the lethargy that had been dragging him down lately suddenly giving way to excitement and anticipation.

The man struggled beneath Klaus though it seemed as if he simply wouldn’t budge; utterly immovable as he bore down upon him, and then the man got weaker; his struggles became more pathetic, laughable, and he slid down the wall and collapsed onto the floor. Klaus followed him down.

He was still alive, simply unconscious, and his skin was warm under Klaus’ fingers. His hands fumbled to tear his jacket off, discarding it aside carelessly, and then his hand ran down his arm, eyes tracing the movement as if it was hypnotising.

The man’s knuckles had split even more in his struggle to get away from Klaus. Droplets of blood dripped sluggishly down his hand, dripping off his wrist. Klaus surged forwards without thought, tongue cleaning the exposed blood on his skin. Just like the bath before, the taste exploded on his tongue, though a hundred times more intense – much more than the little droplets from the thin cut on his finger.

It only spurred him on. A gasp stumbled from his lips and his eyelids fluttered. He dropped the man’s wrist and then curled his fingers roughly in his short hair, yanking his head back to expose his pale throat. The rhythmic beat of his heart drowned out Ben, who was looking increasingly more disturbed and only exploded into yelling when Klaus’ mouth closed onto the side of his throat.

The sharpness of his teeth pierced his skin with no resistance, and blood burst free into his mouth that he swallowed down without hesitation. The man beneath him jerked, but Klaus was quick; his hand shot up, covering his mouth and muffling his scream. He thrashed furiously and Klaus had to move to straddle his hips and pin his legs down, his other hand pushing down on his chest. His head yanked back, teeth pulling with it flesh that dripped blood down his chin. The man slowly got weaker and weaker, his heartbeat too weakening and slowing; thrashing turned to twitching and jerking and his sobs to muffled moans and whines. Blood pooled beneath his head and spilled from the corner of his mouth, though what didn’t hit the floor was quickly devoured by Klaus’ tongue.

He simply moved on autopilot, as if he had done this a thousand times before. He moved away from his neck once the blood flow began to slow, turning his attention the man’s arms instead. He held his wrist and sunk his teeth into his bicep, and he travelled lower as he ate. His teeth tore flesh viciously, akin to some rabid dog tearing into food as if it hadn’t eaten in weeks, and hardly a single drop of blood escaped his tongue; his throat guzzling it down greedily.

It was the best thing he’d ever had.

He felt high. His body felt light and his mind clear. He slowed down as he became more and more satisfied, less desperate to tear into the man’s body like a madman. His lips danced over bone, sucking it clean, and his teeth tore at flesh as if it was a steak he was eating rather than a person who had been alive no longer than twenty minutes ago.

He chased a drop of blood running down his own fingers, sitting back, still on the man’s hips though he had long since stopped struggling. He let go of the wrist still clutched in his grip, letting go of what remained of his arm.

“ _Klaus_ ,” said Ben, sounding distressed. Klaus forgot he had been there. Klaus’ eyes snapped towards him but he didn’t ask any questions; he simply stared at him. “What – Klaus – what the fuck? What the fuck, Klaus? You just-“

“I know,” said Klaus, surprisingly calm. He turned his gaze to the man beneath him; the torn flesh, the obscene amount of blood pooling around them, sprayed across the walls. His skin, untouched by Klaus’ teeth, was still stained with his own blood. It was a horrific, gory mess; it would make anyone’s stomach crawl at the idea of a person being so horrifically torn into.

Klaus had seen worse with the ghosts.

Ben paced, running his hands stressfully through his hair. “Klaus – you just ate someone, what the fuck? Why?”

“I feel so much better,” Klaus murmured. His tongue dashed out to catch a drop of blood he felt roll down from the corner of his mouth. He looked down, eying the remainder of his arm with more mental clarity than he’d had lately. He knew what he was doing when he reached down, picked up the loose hand, and bit into his wrist; a smaller bite than before, as if he was testing what might happen now that his mind was clearer.

It didn’t disgust him like it ought to. Compared to the food he had eaten before, this was leagues above it all. His stomach settled contently, his body seemed to glow in the aftermath of eating; he felt better than he ever had since resurrecting.

“ _Klaus_ – oh, stop Klaus, stop that, please-“ Ben begged, turning his head away from him.

“It’s okay, Ben,” Klaus murmured, swallowing heavily. “I had to do it.”

Ben swallowed audibly, staring at the mess and carnage around. “You – you ought to leave, I think.”

Klaus laughed, nodding his head. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He stood up and looked down.

His hands and arms were covered in blood. His knees and the toes of his shoes, too, were stained, and his top had splatters across it. He had no doubt his face was probably covered in it, too.

Good thing, he thought, that he knew every back alley and shortcut in this part of the city.

He left the corpse and the only reason he gave it a second glance was to consider if he wanted more before he left.

###

Ben was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. Klaus drained the water in the bathtub, having gone nearly completely red, and began to run clean water again.

“Do you want to talk about that?” Klaus asked casually. Ben’s eyes shot to him.

“You just ate a person,” he stated. Klaus nodded.

“I did.”

“What the fuck, Klaus?”

“I feel so much better, Ben,” he said, lifting his gaze from the water rushing from the tap to stare at his brother. “So much better. I think… I think I was half-way there when I said I thought I was a vampire.” His lips twitched upwards in an amused smile.

“Jesus, Klaus,” muttered Ben, scrubbing his hands down his face and shaking his head. “What are you? A – a fucking zombie?”

Klaus’ face lit up. “You know what, I think you’re right,” he said. “No pulse. Food is utterly horrific, Ben. I can –“ he took a breath, pressing his lips together and lowering his voice as if uttering a secret. “I can hear everyone’s heartbeat, Ben. Diego’s in the gym. Luther and Allison are in the living room; Five is in his bedroom, Vanya is outside. I can hear them.” His hands scrubbed down his face and the motion seemed to wipe off the amused façade he was maintaining. One hand lingered over his mouth and his eyes went distant, staring at the far wall. He could still smell blood. He had just murdered a man. 

Ben scrutinised him, expression going from stressed and disturbed to curious.

“And,” said Klaus, voice hoarse, “we’ve all done worse. _Everyone_ here is a murderer, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Ben, “but you _ate_ _a_ _person_!”

Klaus’ face darkened. “And what did the Horrors do when they got too strong?” He turned away, biting his lip. "I didn't mean to. I - I don't know, Ben. I don't know."

Ben’s face fell and he recoiled. Klaus knew it was a low blow, but it was a fact; Reginald had bought rats and mice and bunnies and Klaus had never seen a single one of them. Ben had. And Klaus had seen the most unfortunate victims of the Horror. Ben was hardly better than him.

“Look,” Klaus said, swiftly moving on. “This is just it, huh? It’s just another one of those things about our fucked up life. There’s nothing we can do about it; I just have to eat, Ben, like everyone else needs to.”

“You looked dead,” Ben muttered, “walking to that alleyway.” Klaus pressed his lips together and eyed the blood still stuck in the creases of his skin.

“It was a weird state of mind,” he admitted, nodding. “I was starving. I lost control. I won’t again.”

“The others will find out.”

A little darkly, Klaus declared; “then they better stay out of my way.” He cleared his throat. “There’s nothing they can do, either. I need to eat, Ben. I’ll just get worse if I don’t, I think. I can hardly remember starting to-” He paused. "Yeah."

Ben sighed, slumping, and Klaus slid back into the bath, now full of clean water.

“It’s just how it is,” Klaus muttered, listening to the beating of hearts around the Academy. He slid his eyes closed and sunk back into the bath, water rising up to his chin, and fell backwards into his still-reeling mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, Klaus Did Some Shit, huh?  
> I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments lmao


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: cannibalism, murder, implied animal death, few themes of dehumanisation.

He slept better than he ever had that night, even if it was only for two hours. He fell asleep within seconds and woke up with no fatigue heavy in his muscles, no fogginess in his head, no pain in his stomach and the taste of blood in his mouth.

The memories of last night assaulted him almost immediately. The feeling of flesh beneath his teeth, the taste of blood on his tongue; it was so vivid he felt lie he was reliving it. 

He fell out of his bed, legs caught in a tangle of bedsheets, in his haste to stand up and run to the bathroom. He only just managed to make it in time to crash to his knees in front of the toilet and throw up. His fingers clung to the bowl, his whole body shaking as he gagged and retched violently and struggled to breathe in between bouts of spluttering. He was only even more disturbed to see that everything that had come up was red, and his hands hurried to flush the toilet and hide the proof of what had happened. 

And oh, not only had he done that in the first place, but what disturbed him also was how he simply walked home afterwards. How he had taken a bath; how he hadn't cared. He had been high on how good he had felt that the reality of the situation hadn’t properly clicked, he had simply found a solution to ease how horrific he had been feeling. If anything, he had been irritated with Ben not agreeing with him, irritated at the idea of anyone thinking he was wrong. And then he had gone to sleep as if he hadn’t done a thing.

“Klaus, Klaus, breathe,” said Ben, kneeling by his side. “You’re alright, Klaus-“

“What the fuck did I _do_ , Ben?” Klaus wheezed. “Ben, what the fuck, what the fuck, I – holy shit –“

“Klaus, I know, I know, but you need to calm down,” Ben urged. “You need to breathe.”

He couldn’t. His mouth tasted like blood and he had just – just-

He lunged to lean over the toilet again.

His forehead leaned against his forearm and panted, wrestling to get his lungs to slow down.

“Klaus, darling? You’re okay. Can you manifest me? Do you think you could do that for me?”

Klaus jumped at the sound of Dave’s voice, wide eyes shooting over his shoulder to look at him. Dave didn’t know. Surely, he didn’t know. Klaus tried to jerk away from Dave’s hands, shaking his head. Dave would be disgusted, utterly horrified.

“That’s okay, darling,” he said, wearing an easy smile, “but I’m right here for you. I’m here, and you’re alright.”

Klaus bit back a sob, covering his mouth with one of his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. He only just managed to focus enough to make Dave corporeal, though the veteran wasted little time in setting his hands upon his shoulders and comforting him. He melted into his embrace, swallowing his nausea down and hiding his face in his hands.

###

He avoided his siblings like the plague. He shut himself in his bedroom and refused to leave unless everyone was asleep, and only then did he leave to get water and then rush back upstairs. He smoked the last of his weed, grateful for when the high made him fall back into bed and blink the day into night.

He tried to ignore the rising hunger. His stomach began to cramp viciously like it had before, though arguably this time was worse because he knew, now, what it was that his body craved. His mouth watered and he could recall how perfect everything had felt after he had eaten and once more would be fine, just once.

Even without the weed, he only continued to lose time. It was disorienting, but his mind was too fuzzy to even be concerned about it.

Shortly after four days, he found himself in his bedroom with blood on his hands and blood on his tongue and he tried not to make the connection of the suddenly missing alley cat. It only helps slightly.

Two days later and he finds himself stumbling down dimly lit streets in the shady area of town. He couldn’t quite make out what it was Ben was trying to tell him.

He did remember, however, that getting high had at least given him some extra time. So, despite the way he felt like he might pass out, he found himself in a club with pounding music and heartbeats and flashing lights.

He was in the crowd, stumbling through people. He was in the bathroom, staring at the pale person in the mirror with no recognition of them, and then he was in a corner and someone was standing close to him, breath like fire on Klaus’ ear.

They had stuff, but not there. They could go get it. Klaus followed him out of the club and onto the streets, unflinching at the drastic change in temperature. The man was too close to him, keeping a hand on either Klaus’ wrist or on his back, always keeping them pressed together in some way.

He tugged him into an alleyway, a ‘short cut’, and Klaus’ back hit a wall and there were lips dancing along his neck and he just wanted, needed, to get high soon because his stomach was furious with him, and he didn’t want what this man obviously did, he had _Dave-_

He shoved the man off of him, though they didn’t part for long. Klaus rushed forwards and his fists curled into the man’s shirt as he shoved him back and –

There was blood everywhere. He felt high. He knew what he had done without even having to look at the body, trapped beneath him from where he was still straddling it.

He let out a pitiful moan and struggled upright.

###

And so it goes, following a pattern.

He doesn’t eat for a few days, dodging his siblings at every possibility. He goes as long as he thinks he can before the pain starts up again, and then he sneaks out at night, clambering down his fire escape with clumsy hands, and he finds someone he knows won’t be missed. He feels better than ever and he hurries home, cleans himself, relaxes in the bath, and then clambers into bed. He falls asleep for an hour or two and is plagued with the images of what he had done. He wakes up, runs to the bathroom to gag and retch while Ben tries to tell him how to breathe, and he vows to never do it again. Days pass and reality begins to slip from his fingers and the cycle starts anew.

Following his first _meal_ , as he had begun to call them – because, really, what else were they to him? – his mind was more clear and it allowed him to really think about what he was doing. He understood what he was doing was so horrifically wrong and disturbing. He knew that he was a terrible person. He understood that even more when he lounged in the living room, absentmindedly listening to the news, and a report of some horrific death would pop up. Passer-by’s noticing a horrific smell from an alleyway or a dumpster, only to see a corpse looking like it had been torn to shreds there.

(Klaus had hoped they would assume that perhaps some pack of stray dogs had done it, but the first _mysterious death_ had been labelled as such – his teeth were sharp, but they weren’t like a dog’s, and they couldn’t be sure about it, so it remained not confirmed as an animal death and not confirmed as a murder either.)

But, on the other hand, what else could he do?

He knew that the longer he went without eating, the worse his mental state seemed to get, the more pain he was in, how easy it was to lose control because he was utterly starving; and he didn’t want to risk the next person being one of his siblings. So the people he chose would simply have to do.

He did his best at choosing his victims, at least. People that weren’t good, people that wouldn’t be missed. His second meal was an accident that he vowed not to let happen again; the third one was an addict. (He learned, however, that addicts tasted bitter and gross, but should he have no other choice he would force himself to eat them instead of someone else.) His fourth was more risky; out on the search at night, once more in the shady part of town (though it had begun to get quieter because, really, who in their right minds would leave their house when reports of animalistic deaths were popping up all around?) and he had bumped into an old acquaintance.

One of his old boyfriends from a couple of years ago, perhaps, and not one of the nicer ones. It only took the mix of hunger and anger provoked from the few choice nicknames the man decided to say upon seeing Klaus for Klaus to grab him and pull him into the nearest alleyway with a strength that he really shouldn’t have.

But it was fine. He never got caught; he never lost control; he never hurt anyone particularly innocent or anyone who might be missed. His siblings didn’t catch on, though he was sure he saw some peculiar looks sent his way. But they didn’t know, so it was _fine_. He was fine.

If anything, the only bad part of it all was that Klaus was scared of what would happen should he decide _not_ to eat. Perhaps a little curious too, sure, but so long as his family were nearby he was scared more so. But he did wonder; would his body shut down on itself, leave him like some braindead shell of a person, unresponsive and cold like a corpse? Would he lose all control and, like some savage beast rather than a person, lunge for whoever was closest?

He tried not to entertain those ideas, but it had been hard lately. He was trying to space his meals out as much as he could, what with the fact that they were being uncovered and looked into, but the more he ate the more he craved and the pain he suffered when he didn’t eat was horrific.

It was conflicting, really. He knew what he was doing was bad but he only understood that _after_ he had gone and done it; as time passed it got harder to tell what was wrong and what was right, simply what he needed to do. He did his best by choosing bad people and not letting himself lose control; by stretching it as long as he could before he needed to eat again. He knew he ought to hate himself; he ought to want to lock himself up so he couldn’t hurt anyone, but he wasn’t entirely sure that the gravity of what he was doing really clicked, as if his sense of right and wrong had been shaken slightly. It was beyond his control.

He tried not to think about the paranoia and the guilt following the deaths – the murders. He tried to shake off the nightmares and tried not to think about what it was he was doing.

His siblings didn’t comment on Klaus and they had no way to connect Klaus to the deaths on television.

“ _Do you think it’s a serial killer?” Vanya asked, poking around at her plate._

_“What?”_

_“You know, the deaths on television,” she said._

_“Just don’t go to that part of town,” said Luther. “It’s probably some gang thing going on. It’s all drug dealers, right? Maybe you ought to ask Klaus about it.”_

_“Hey,” snapped Klaus, standing by the window and smoking a cigarette. “I’ll have you know that I don’t kill my drug dealers.”_

_“No, no,” said Diego, swallowing down pasta. “I saw some of it-“_

_“What?” Klaus asked. Diego raised an eyebrow._

_“Eudora worked on the second case, I… offered my help. They aren’t entirely sure – they think it’s probably a dog. The bite marks aren’t human teeth, but they’re not exactly like a kind of dog’s or cat’s, either, unless someone’s going about mutilating dog teeth and sicking them on people. But it’s probably just some weird dog anyway, with broken teeth or something. Plus; who would just,” he made a vague gesture with his fork, the pasta hardly clinging onto it, “kill a person like that? You couldn’t do that to someone in an alley without getting noticed.”_

_Allison clicked her fingers, made a strangled noise, and, in a hoarse voice, said “at dinner?”_

_Five stayed uncharacteristically quiet throughout the entire thing._

So, as long as he could keep on going like this until he finds a more ethical way, if there even was such a way, he ought to be fine.

He didn’t notice how curious his siblings got. At the very least, he didn’t notice that Five seemed to take an interest in Klaus. He knew he didn’t look well, really, but he was certainly acting in perfect health unless he was nearing his breaking point with hunger.

He didn’t notice that, when he snuck out that night, he wasn’t alone.

He went further than usual; deeper into the darker parts of town, trying to keep the deaths spread out and disconnected as best as he could, but it had been three days and he was beginning to dissociate with the phantom taste of blood in the back of his mouth and he was clinging onto his own sense of reality rather than that distorted, twisted reality that his mindset slipped into when he was deprived.

So he kept walking. The streets were almost entirely empty and he walked, really, on autopilot, his mind a muddled mess. Had he been thinking more clearly, he might have made the connection between the way a heartbeat appeared in an alleyway only to disappear if he turned his head towards it, suddenly somewhere else; inside a shop, a building, behind him. But he didn’t he focused on the nearest heartbeat that didn’t keep disappearing before he could reach it, and he stumbled ever closer to it.

Another dealer; one Klaus knew well. He’d gotten his first hit of heroin from him and had never forgotten his face, even through all his drug-addled memories.

The man looked up from his phone when Klaus came close.

Klaus had gotten faster with this, too. He hardly said Klaus before he was against the wall, one of Klaus’ hands covering his mouth. His breath ghosts his throat and he swallows, tongue feeling heavy, and then he says; “I’m sorry.” Then his teeth sink into flesh.

At the very least, he had gotten better at doing it so that the person was dead in only seconds. It was as swift as he could make it for them.

Blood blossomed on his tongue and his eyes fluttered closed in instant relief.

Hands on his shoulders yanked him back.

He made a noise of surprise, eyes snapping open. His _meal_ collapsed, dead, to the floor, and he tumbled down as well. It took his blood-hazy mind several moments to process what was going on.

Someone had interrupted him. Someone was in front of him, trying to speak to him.

Klaus huffed, curled his hands into the person’s clothing and witnesses weren’t good, so he’d simply have to eat a lot tonight – but the person disappeared with a flash of blue.

Klaus didn’t care. As long as they stayed away, he could continue. He had never been interrupted when eating before, but it made some twisted anger rise up in him. He turned back to the body in front of him, settled himself comfortably and hurried to catch the oozing blood from his throat with his mouth.

He went for the shoulders, next, though quickly changed when there was little meat on his bony shoulders, so he followed down to his side where there was always plenty of meat, whether or not the person was cocaine-skinny or not. Blood ran hot down his chin and every so often he would swipe the back of his hand beneath his mouth and then lick it clean. He gnawed along his ribs like a dog with a bone, one hand beneath the meal’s back pressing him upwards into to try and get a good angle to bite at. His fingers dug into his flesh and he briefly mourned the fact that his nails weren’t sharp enough to dig in and tear it – it would make the process a whole lot easier and wouldn’t get his face so mess.

He moved to the meal’s arm, bit into his forearm and dashed his tongue out to catch the initial burst of blood.

As he ate, his mind and body settled like it always did, everything coming back to him in clarity and he sat back, tongue chasing the blood on his fingers and hands, and running along his blood-stained teeth. And then he noticed the second heartbeat.

He sat upright, head snapping to the side. Five was standing a few feet away, just far enough that no blood had gotten on him or his clothes, and he had a blank expression on his face.

“You’re fucked,” said Ben.

“F-Five,” stammered Klaus, and blood dripped free from the corner of his lip. Despite himself, his tongue hurried out to catch it, not wasting a drop. “What are you doing?”

“I think I should be asking you that,” Five returned, folding his arms across his chest and looking at the mess beneath Klaus. “So you’re behind all those deaths. For weeks, Klaus.”

Klaus swallowed. The smell of copper was heady and he had the sudden urge to just ignore Five and eat as much as he could before the body began to get too cold.

“I have to,” he said instead, fumbling up onto his feet. “I have to, Five.”

Five watched Klaus come closer carefully, as if ensuring Klaus wasn’t about to lunge for his throat too. “What happened?” He asked instead. “Why are you doing this?”

Klaus sighed. His hands were sticky and he wanted a bath, but it didn’t seem like Five would let him just walk free from his interrogation.

“Vanya killed me,” he said, and Five nodded. “God, or whoever that is Up There, said I couldn’t come back like I usually did. That was supposed to be permanent. So She sent me back, but differently. I – come here.” He reached for Five’s hand and Five, despite the current situation, didn’t flinch. He let Klaus’ bloody fingers grab his wrist and pull it to his neck, pressing his fingers down where he should be able to find his pulse. Five twitched.

“You’re dead,” he stated. Klaus dropped his hand.

“Sort of. Except for the fact I’m here and not a ghost. I don’t know the terms and conditions of this situation.”

Five looked Klaus up and down. “You’ve not been sleeping, you’ve not got a pulse, you’ve not been eating and you’re cold to the touch. You might as well be a walking corpse.”

Klaus hummed. “Normal food is disgusting, Five. I’ve tried to eat it; I can’t. I have to do this.”

“You tried to bite me,” he accused, but not harshly. Klaus’ stomach twisted and he looked away briefly.

“You interrupted me,” returned Klaus. “That was a dumb idea. I – I need to eat, Five, or it fucks with me. I feel dead when I don’t eat. It messes with my head.”

Five’s eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”

Klaus heaved a sigh, looking at his hands, coated in blood. “I – can’t think, when I don’t eat. I black out for hours. Nothing else matters. It – I don’t know how to explain it.” He waved a hand in a vague gesture and Five’s eyes tracked the motion.

“Do you know what you’ve just done?” He asked. Klaus allowed himself a brief glance over his shoulder.

“I know,” he uttered. “I _know_ , Five. But I can’t stop.” He swallowed down the rising hysteria. "I can't stop, Five, I can't, I need this."

Five wore a curious expression, eying Klaus thoughtfully. Then he turned to eye the mess behind him. “We shouldn’t stay here,” he said. “No point in trying to hide that, it’ll be found anyway. We need to go home and we need to talk, Klaus.”

Klaus swallowed down the rising dread in his blood-slick throat, nodded, and turned to walk through the alleyway. Five reached out, grabbed his wrist, and in the blink of an eye he was tumbling to his knees in the bathroom of the Academy.

“Clean yourself up,” said Five, nudging him towards the sink. Klaus nodded, obediently fumbling to turn the tap on and scrubbing his hands clean, then leaning forwards to clean his face and neck. Five said nothing; simply hovering and watching him. When he was done and the sink was no longer splattered with faint pink remnants, he dried his hands and face and turned to Five.

“Your teeth,” Five commented. Subconsciously, Klaus’ tongue ran across the sharp points and he nodded.

“They changed,” he murmured. “Got sharper. For that reason, I guess.” Five’s head cocked to the side, that thoughtful glint returning to his eyes. Klaus shifted on the spot.“Don’t tell the others,” he requested. Five quirked an eyebrow.

“I don’t think this is something that we can hide, Klaus,” he snorted. “Or that we should.”

“Please,” he said. “They don’t need to know. They won’t understand.”

“I don’t think anyone will,” Five told him. “But this is something we need to talk about, and we need to figure out what’s going on.”

“I’m fine,” Klaus insisted. “I have this under control, Five. Please, they don't need to know."

“Until the day you get careless,” Five replied. “And someone else finds you. You can’t get away with it then. And who knows the extent of this? There might be more to this than you think as well, and we can’t risk letting it just progress and get worse.”

Klaus pressed his lips together, deflating, and his eyes searched out a quiet Ben as if he might be able to help him.

“It would be good to have Five on your side. He has a point,” he stated. “He might be able to help figure out what’s actually going on. Who knows how long you can keep this up for, Klaus.”

Klaus frowned, his hands twitching by his side as Five’s eyes bore into him, unrelenting. “Fine,” he said. “But I’m blaming you if I get murdered.”

Five rolled his eyes and then nodded his head towards the door. Klaus trudged out with Five trailing after him. “Go sit downstairs,” said Five, “I’ll get everyone else.”

Though Klaus’ guts churned with anxiety, he found his feet taking him downstairs and he crumpled onto the couch.

“Maybe I could make a run for it,” he muttered, looking to Ben.

“It was inevitable,” he shrugged, leaning against the fireplace. Rather than listening to the scuffle of tired footsteps, he heard the thump of steady hearts come closer and closer. His cheek twitched. Five appeared in the room, instantly seeking out Klaus and relaxing a fraction when he saw him still there.

“What’s this all about?” Luther asked, trudging in, his voice heavy with sleep. He scrutinised Klaus and he just hoped he’d gotten all traces of blood off.

“It’s about Klaus,” said Five, standing next to him.

“What’s happened?” Diego asked, narrowing his eyes and looking Klaus up and down.

“Are you okay?” Vanya asked, taking a seat opposite himself.

When Klaus didn’t speak, Five did. “We discussed, earlier, how coming back from the dead was part of his powers.”

Everyone nodded. “And Klaus has apparently done this multiple times.” Again, a few hesitant nods.

“Did – did you _die_?” Vanya asked, eyes widening a fraction. This time, Five nudged Klaus.

“I – no, no,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t. It’s – nothing, it’s nothing-“

He rose up to his feet, only for Five’s hands to land on his shoulders and push him back down. “Klaus,” he muttered beneath his breath, fixing him with cold eyes, and Klaus turned back to his siblings, waiting with varying looks of concern and confusion.

“Christ, fine,” he muttered. “I died, we know that. But – it was different, this time.”

“He’s still dead,” said Five.

“ _What_?”

Klaus glared at Five, waving his hands to try and dispel what he just said. “Look, fuck, _thanks_ ,” he hissed. “I’m – yeah. Kind of.”

Diego rose to his feet almost immediately, shooting over and though Klaus tensed, all he did was reach out a hand and press his fingers, a little roughly, to his neck, where he held them for several moments in tense silence.

“You – you’ve not got a pulse, Klaus,” he said, voice quiet. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean, he’s not got a pulse?” Luther asked, seeming to wake up much quicker now. “Klaus, explain.”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Klaus hissed. “Look, fuck. Right. I – I die, and I just get sent back, and it’s fine, right? Everything’s normal. But last time, I was supposed to stay dead. I wasn’t supposed to come back. But I did. Kind of.”

“So, you’re, what? A ghost?”

“If I was a ghost, you wouldn’t be able to see me,” he stated. “I’m just – I don’t know.” He shrugged helplessly, watching his pale skin ripple over his knuckles. “I’m dead. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat – normal food. I don’t have a pulse and I’m cold to the touch.”

His siblings seemed unable to find the correct words to respond with; staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“Klaus is dead,” Five reiterates. “His body seems to be working relatively normal, however. It requires a different type of sustenance. From what I’ve heard so far, he doesn’t need heat, sleep or food. I’d debate whether or not he even needs water to survive, too. The only thing that he seems to need is human flesh; without it, he begins to shut down-“

“Woah, woah, woah,” said Diego, waving a hand, “hold on – what did you just say? He needs _what_?”

Klaus cringed. Five barrelled on, unfazed. “Human flesh. It turns out that the recent deaths in the city are consequence to Klaus’ new state.”

“No,” said Diego. “No way. I – I saw one of those corpses, Five, and _Klaus_ did not do that, that’s sick-“

Allison, too, joined in; shaking her head and muttering disapprovingly, disturbed. Five rolled his eyes and inched closer to Klaus, grabbing his jaw.

“His teeth have sharpened,” he stated. “Not like a human’s, not like a dog’s. I’d guess they sharpened specifically to help him eat like this.”

Standing close to Klaus, Diego could lean down and eye his teeth when Five’s thumb pulled his lower lip down before Klaus hissed, shoving Five’s hand off him.

“I’m not your little freak show,” he snapped. “I didn’t _ask_ for this-“

“Klaus,” said Diego, and he had taken a step back. “Your teeth – there’s blood on them.”

Klaus’ cheeks flushed ever so slightly and his eyes snapped away, down to stare at his hands.

“He’s been sneaking out at nights; I’m surprised no one else noticed,” said Five. “I assumed it was for drugs, but he's been sober the majority of the time I’ve seen him. I followed him earlier. He was eating.”

“This isn’t _funny_ ,” said Vanya. She looked a little afraid. Luther looked mad.

“People are dying, Five,” Luther said. “I’d expect Klaus to come up with this, but not you-“

“They weren’t good people,” Klaus defended. “I made sure that they weren’t. Dealers, who didn’t care about the people they were selling to. Bad people.”

Luther turned his eyes onto Klaus; wider now, as if truly entertaining the idea. “You didn’t.”

“He did,” said Five. “Because he has to.” When Luther took a threatening step towards Klaus, Five placed himself between them. “It’s a fact, Luther. He’s done what he’s done and there’s nothing we can do about it now. I'm more interested in making sure it doesn't get worse."

“You can’t seriously be okay with this,” Luther exclaimed, wide eyes on Klaus.

“And what will throwing him out do?” Five asked, ever unfazed by Luther’s hulking form towering over him. “We don’t know the extent of this; I doubt Klaus does too. There might be a chance this progresses. We can’t be sure. We’re exploring Vanya’s powers at the moment, we ought to be trying to figure out Klaus’ right now as well rather than risk another sibling go nuclear.” Now, he turned to Klaus. “How long have you gone without eating?”

Klaus pursed his lips, considering the question and staring at his nails. “Four days,” he stated. “I don’t remember what happened after.”

Five went quiet, thoughtful. “You grabbed me, earlier,” he stated. “I didn’t think you were that strong.”

Klaus shrugged. “I’m not. It’s – I think it’s just when I’m hungry.”

Five nodded, turning to eye their silent audience. “I doubt we can change it,” he said. “You know more about… ghosts and the afterlife than we do,” he looked awkward as he said that, as if uncertain of what he was saying, “But I think we should try and figure out the extent of this before it gets out of hand.” His eyes roamed over their siblings. Klaus didn't dare look.

Klaus stared at him for several seconds. Then, a little hesitantly, he nodded.

He did want to understand what was going on better. The idea that it might progress, might go deeper and tighten its hold on him, scared him, especially considering the fact that he couldn’t prove it wouldn’t do just that.

His eyes swept over his other still-staring siblings and he swallowed, rising to his feet.

“I’m not bad,” he said. “I’m not hurting innocent people. I’m not going to hurt you lot, either. But it’s out of my control. I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. I’m – I’m not _bad._ I don’t want this, and I don’t have a choice.”

Wasn’t he bad, though? He could hear the way everyone’s hearts had begun to beat harder. Were they frightened or disturbed? Likely both, and rightfully so. He was terrible and disgusting and he couldn’t stop. He was as frightened of what he was doing as he was of what might happen should he stop.

Before his siblings could say anything, he slid out from behind Five and headed upstairs, eager to close the door and lock himself away from them all, their horror-struck expressions. He had been determinedly avoiding thinking about what was going on, about the right and wrong of it all, and he wasn’t sure he could face the unfiltered reality of it.

He just felt conflicted, as if his mind had been split in two. Some days the guilt and the horror was overwhelming. Should he fall asleep tonight he knew it would be short and he’d wake up in a rush to get to the toilet and the full guilt would hit him then, and he’d panic and cry and swear he wouldn’t do it again. And then three days would pass and he’d feel as if he had been awake for a week and starved for eight and nothing else would matter except for eating and he’d feel so good again and he wouldn't understand how it was wrong until the 'high' wore off.

It was a vicious cycle and though he knew what to expect, he could never brace himself for it. He could never prepare for the hunger pains and the twisted thought process, could never steel himself enough to ride it out and perhaps just be normal again. It was instinctual and unavoidable and maddening and he couldn’t do a thing about it, whether he wanted to or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes  
> PSA: I don't, you know, condone actual cannibalism or anything, please don't go around eating people, this is just a story  
> Kind of unsatisfied with this chapter? Idk, I'd love to hear what you think though


	5. Chapter 5

Klaus made a point of avoiding his siblings, and it seemed that they were perfectly alright with that as well. He couldn’t blame them. 

Five, however, was one to seek him out. Whether or not he feared what might become of Klaus or if he was simply purely curious, he seemed to invest himself in the idea of figuring out what was going on. Hardly an hour after the horrific family meeting and he had appeared in Klaus’ bedroom. 

Klaus startled. Dave disappeared from his sight and Klaus fell back onto his bed, narrowly avoiding hitting his head off the headboard. 

“Warn a guy, would you?” He groaned, sitting upright. 

“You should have expected that, really,” Five returned. “I need you to tell me everything.” 

Klaus quirked an eyebrow. “What?” 

“Everything. Tell me everything that’s going on with you, Klaus.” 

Klaus sighed, scrubbing his hand down his face. He shifted, getting more comfortable on the bed and looking down at his lap. “What do you want to know?” 

Five gave him a look. “ _Everything_ ,” he repeated. “You said that you black out and not eating messes with your head. Explain.” 

Klaus propped his cheek up on his hand and shrugged helplessly. “Just that, bro,” he sighed. “Days pass and everything gets fuzzy and I’ll lose time. It’s like I haven’t slept in a week.” His eyes flicked to Ben and then away. “It’s, um, hard to process things. And when I eat, that’s all that matters. It’s hard to make myself stop if I’m not satisfied. I, uh. I can hear heartbeats.” 

Five seemed to be mentally noting everything he said, leaning against the wall and watching him with an unreadable expression, though he raised an eyebrow at the last part. “And what does that mean?” 

Klaus shrugged. “Just what I said. I can hear yours right now. I can tell that Diego is in the gym right now – his is fast. Allison and Luther are in the living room. I can hear them. It’s almost overwhelming, sometimes. I can’t sleep or eat, but you already know that.” 

Five nodded, eyes flicking away. “And you went four days without eating?” He said. 

“That was the longest.” Klaus scrubbed a hand down his face and heaved a heavy sigh. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, Five. I don’t want to do this but the longer I go the less I care, and I know in a few more days it’ll happen again.” 

Five’s face took on a serious expression. “Do you think you could go longer?” He asked. Klaus startled slightly at the question, having to take a moment before answer. 

“No. No, I don’t think so. I… I think I’d find a way to do it anyway. I don’t know what happened when I tried to stretch it. I don’t know if I’d lash out. I can’t promise I wouldn’t.” 

Five looked thoughtful. “We could put you in the attic,” he said. 

“I know how to get out of there,” Klaus replied. Five gave him a fleeting questioning look. 

“The basement, then,” he said. 

“Five-“ He sucked in a breath and looked away. “I’ll end up hurting someone.” 

Five deflated slightly. “The door was put back onto Vanya’s cage,” he stated. “If you think it would be that bad, unless you know somewhere else you can't get out of.” 

Klaus scratched the back of his neck. Vanya's cage would work, and did he know anywhere else? He knew one place, but it made the hairs on his arms stand up and made his stomach drop and he couldn't do that. The idea of being locked in a cage with the hunger pains he knew would come did not seem at all pleasant. And plus, he had no idea what might happen after day four. How much worse could it get? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

“Are we even sure this is a good decision? Like, doing it at all?” He asked. 

“I’d rather not have you sent to jail for murder and then sent to some government facility to be tested on after you attempt to eat half of the inmate population,” Five drawled. “We don’t know what’s going on with you just now. We don’t know the extent. For all I know, there might be a cure, and the sooner we figure it out, the better.” 

Klaus toyed with his lower lip anxiously. 

He should have stayed at his apartment. He should have been more careful, or not have allowed Five to tell the others, or he should have simply locked himself up somewhere that he couldn’t get out of.

“Fine,” he said. “But I’m fine right now.” 

“Four days, huh?” Five said. Klaus raised an eyebrow but nodded. “So I’ll find you in three and we’ll go down there.” 

Klaus scrubbed a hand down his face. “I get that this is, like, important or whatever, but I’m not a freak show,” he stated, lifting his head. “You don’t get to poke and prod me and throw me in a cage. I’m only doing this so we know what happens if it gets worse.” 

Five’s face remained serious. “I know, Klaus. I’m not going to do anything to you, but for all we know eating less or not at all is a cure itself and you just need to wait it out.” 

Klaus looked away. He highly doubted that. Five continued. “Vanya’s cage is still broken. It’s not soundproof anymore, nor should it work to repress any powers. It’s simply a room with a door that we can keep closed. I’ll watch you. If you need out, I’ll let you out.” 

Klaus eyed him. “Promise?” 

“Promise.” 

“Fine.” 

### 

Dave was running his fingers through his hair. 

“Are you ready to tell me?” He asked in a murmur. Klaus sighed. 

“I - I can’t.” 

Dave knew something was wrong and whether or not he had made any assumptions as to what was going on, Klaus wasn’t sure. But he respected when Klaus had begged him not to follow him when he went outside, and he didn’t listen to the family meeting. 

Klaus didn’t like keeping secrets from him – god knows what might happen should Dave find out the hard way – but he didn’t want to tell Dave either. 

“You’ll hate me,” he said. “You’ll think I’m a monster. And you’re right.” 

Dave’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “I think I can decide that,” he said. Klaus shook his head. 

“I know I am,” he insisted. “I’ve done – I'm _doing_ terrible things, Dave. Horrible things. And I can’t stop.” 

“But you want to stop,” Dave said. “And I think that shows that you’re not as bad as you think.” 

Klaus made a noise choked in his throat, screwing his eyes shut and fervently shaking his head. “It’s horrible, Dave,” he persisted, “worse than anything you could think of.” 

“And you’re trying to find a way around it, trying to get help, Klaus,” he replied without missing a beat. “You’re not a bad person-” 

“I’ve killed people. That’s what I do when I go out at night. I go out and I murder people,” Klaus blurted, writhing free out of Dave’s grasp to turn and look at him. “I murder them and then I eat them.” 

Dave blinked. 

“Those deaths on the news – the horrible deaths, the ones where people think some pack of dogs have gotten to the victim – it's me. I did that and I can’t stop.” 

Klaus watched Dave’s expression carefully, and should his heart work it would be pounding furiously beneath his ribcage. He inhaled shakily, reaching out his hands to rest them on Dave’s shoulders, fingertips curling into his shirt. 

“Dave - Dave,” he stammered, “I did that, I’m doing that, it’s horrible, but I love you, please don’t - please, I need you-” 

Dave’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He blinked and then lifted his hands to rest them over Klaus’ wrists. 

“I’m here,” he uttered. “I’m here, love. I know you don’t want to do it and you’re trying to figure it out. I’m here.” 

Klaus’ face crumpled in a twisted sense of relief and he fell forwards, biting back a relieved sob. Dave let go of his wrists to instead wrap his arms around him, one hand stroking down his back soothingly. 

“You’ll get through this,” Dave murmured. “It’ll be alright.” 

### 

He could hear someone else outside in the courtyard, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

He felt like shit – no surprise there – and the least he deserved was a cigarette and some fresh air. He had avoided everyone – save for Five – successfully so far, though not by his own effort. If he entered a room, it was empty within two minutes. 

In the corridors, he passed Allison. She saw him walking his way and ducked into the nearest room, her heartbeat picking up. Vanya was sat in the living room when he came down. She stared at him with her heart in her throat, as if waiting for him to lunge at her, and then she put her book down and left, giving him a wide berth. 

Klaus actively avoided Luther. His heartbeat was the strongest; it echoed everywhere, louder than everyone else’s, and so it wasn’t hard to avoid crossing his path. 

Diego had gone to come into the kitchen once, while Klaus was getting water. He had hovered in the doorway, eyes on Klaus’ back, and Klaus had stood still and let him stare. When he had begun to turn around, Diego was gone again. 

Klaus had no idea whether or not Five had said more after he had left the family meeting – he assumed as much – but it was clear as day that his siblings wanted nothing to do with him. They were afraid of him. Disgusted by him. And Klaus couldn’t blame them. 

He could hear Diego outside in the courtyard now and Klaus ought to avoid him, ought to turn around and just smoke on his fire escape, but if he sat on the fire escape he was afraid that he might be tempted to leave. 

So he braced himself, nudged open the doors and slipped outside. He didn’t look towards Diego, sat on one of the benches near the remains of Ben’s statue. He instead stepped to the far end of the courtyard, tugged out his cigarettes and lit one up. He held it between his lips and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs until they burned, and then he plucked the cigarette from his lips and exhaled. 

He lifted it; inhaled, held it, exhaled. Watched the smoke twirl into the air and disappear slowly. 

He wondered how his body worked like this. Or would he slowly rot from the inside out, whether or not he continued to eat, and just collapse in on himself and lose all sense of self but be still mercilessly aware of how he truly was nothing more than a corpse? Were his lungs black? What had become of his useless heart? And how was he still able to stand here despite it all? 

Inhale, hold it, exhale. 

Inhale, hold it- 

A hand landed on his shoulder. He startled, whirling around to face Diego, who took a wary step backwards. His heartbeat wasn’t fast, but it was faster than usual and only picked up now with Klaus’ eyes on him. 

“Klaus,” he said and his voice was quiet. “Tell me – tell me this isn’t real. Tell me you’re lying.” 

Klaus’ shoulders slumped in defeat and his eyes sought out the ground between his feet. He shook his head in a slow swing, side to side. “It’s not,” he said. “I’m sorry, Diego. I’m not lying and neither is Five.” 

Diego swallowed. His heart skipped a beat. “Why?” He asked. “Why do that? You – you know that’s wrong, Klaus, how could you do that?” 

Klaus felt his cheeks flame in guilt and shame. “I know,” he snapped, though it lacked any venom to it. “I know that, Diego. Do you think I don’t? I know what I’m doing is wrong-” 

“Then why keep doing it?” Diego interrupted, his voice sharp, desperate. He took a step forwards and Klaus wondered if he was going to hit him, going to grab him. He wouldn’t stop him. 

He did; he grabbed his arms and held him in place, forced him to look at him. 

“Why keep doing it, Klaus? Why?” 

Klaus dropped his cigarette. He lifted his hand slowly, all too aware of the roaring of Diego’s heart, and then he coaxed one of Diego’s hands off of him and up, pressing his fingers against his neck, to meet the empty pulse of his neck. 

“I can’t stop, Diego,” he muttered. “I want to but I can’t stop. I’m sorry.” 

Diego stared at him, unwavering. Then he pulled his hands back to himself, stumbled a step backwards, and exhaled heavily. 

He turned on heel and hurried back inside. 

Klaus eyed the smouldering remains of his cigarette by his foot and then he crushed it beneath his toe. 

Five better find something for him, he thought, or else he didn’t know what he’d do. 

### 

The cramps return quickly. He finds himself curled up in bed and breathless, teeth grinding against one another as he rode out a sudden cramp. 

“Five’s been busy,” Ben told him as if the information might help ease the pain he was in. “He’ll figure something out to help.” 

“Fuck Five,” Klaus muttered through gritted teeth, though he didn’t really mean it. 

“And here I thought I better check in on you.” 

Klaus startled, cracking his eyes open to see Five standing at the foot of his bed, his knees a few inches from his face. 

“Fuck,” Klaus groaned, turning his head away. Five crouched down, elbows on his knees. His heart was steady and it was almost relaxing. 

“What’s going on, then?” Five asked. 

“Cramps,” Klaus said, exhaling slowly as it began to ease. “Happens when I don’t eat. ‘Sore.” 

Five made a thoughtful noise, looking Klaus up and down. “How long do they last?”

Klaus shrugged. “Minute or two at their worst,” he said, head falling back onto his pillow. “Pain’s constant, though. Like a full body fucking headache.” 

“And what about your mental state now?” Five asked. 

“I know who I am and I know who you are,” Klaus muttered. “Your heart is like a fucking drum. I know what I’m doing.” 

Five nodded his head and then reached out a hand to rest it on Klaus’ forehead despite the way he flinched backwards. 

“Freezing,” he muttered, then stood up. 

“I always am,” said Klaus.

“Not when you just ate. You weren’t _warm_ , but you were warmer. You’re much colder now.” 

Klaus grunted his acknowledgement. “’s that it?” 

“Do you think Reginald would have thought of this?” 

Klaus startled at the question, enough so to open his eyes and stare at Five. “What?” 

“Do you think Reginald might have had any idea about this? He knew a lot about our powers almost before he should have been able to know that. Had he thought that you might be able to come back from the dead one way or another, he might have some notes on it.” 

Klaus shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. If he thought that, he probably would have tried it.” His tone darkened slightly at that. It was nothing short of a miracle that Reginald never found out that Klaus could come back from the dead. Had he known that, Klaus had no doubts that life in the Academy would have been torture. 

Five frowned, glancing away thoughtfully. “I can only think of so much,” he said, and then he lowered himself to sit on the edge of Klaus’ bed. “I’ll look through Reginald’s notes and I’ll try and find the notes on that serum that he created for Luther. Maybe he had something similar. Until then, we carry on like we discussed. Two days,” he said. “Then we’ll move. Unless I see you getting worse before then.” 

Klaus nodded his head, though the motion was largely just to get Five to leave him alone. 

“Cool,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “Dream team, look at us go.” 

Five snorted, standing up. “I did try and talk to everyone else,” he said, a step closer to the door. Klaus opened his eyes. 

“And?” 

“They’ll need time,” Five replied. “They don’t understand. They’ll come around to it themselves eventually; they can’t argue that we need to figure out what’s going on and adapt to it.” 

“Adapt,” echoed Klaus with a snort. “Dad would be proud.” 

Five didn’t laugh. “I’ll check in on you again.” And then he was gone.

Klaus heaved a sigh, eyes slipping closed once more. It was more peaceful by himself, without that taunting roaring heartbeat of his. 

His stomach cramped and he hissed, fisting his hands in his bedsheets and riding it out. 

### 

He couldn’t remember how he got there, but he was crouched in front of the fireplace. He blinked as his consciousness returned, adjusting to the sudden sight of the flames dancing in front of his face. Heat emanated from the fire. His pale fingers danced in the air just out of reach of the flames. He wondered if he would finally feel warm if he leaned just a little closer. 

Before he might truly entertain the idea of doing that, he got distracted by the sound of a heartbeat. Loud, thundering, and he feared it might shake the entire Academy if it got much stronger. 

“Get out.” 

The words were familiar and so was the voice, though the meaning the words held was lost to him. 

He turned his head to look over his shoulder. Luther was stood in the doorway to the living room, nearly filling it with his massive form. He looked intimidating, what with the firelight casting odd shadows across his face, etched with barely restrained anger. 

“I said, get out, Klaus,” he said, taking slow steps closer. Klaus stood up and he blinked. When he opened his eyes, Luther was right in front of him. 

“Did you hear me?” He asked, not looking for an answer, and then he gestured to the door. “Get out, Klaus!” 

Klaus blinked. The words didn’t mean anything. His heartbeat was deafening and only worsening as it quickened in anger. When Klaus didn’t reply, Luther’s fists shot out, curling in his shirt and lifting him right up onto the tips of his toes. 

“You don’t even care about what you did, do you?” He said, nose curling up. What he did? What had he done? He was surviving. “Here you are, living safely, warming up by the fire, listening to television – whatever you want – after tearing lives and families apart. You don’t care.” 

He was warm, Klaus noticed. He noticed it more than the fact that his back was suddenly against a wall and he had been slammed into it so roughly he was sure he heard the wall crack, or perhaps that was his body. It didn’t hurt. 

Luther was still talking, working himself up and getting angrier and angrier. Klaus’ fingers twisted into the sleeves of his jumper by his wrists. His feet were no longer touching the ground, he noticed. 

One of Luther’s hands curled around his pale throat and Klaus dug his nails into his hand. He couldn’t move his head in this grip. 

Hands, not Luther’s rested on top of his and pried them off of Luther’s hand still around his throat. There was a third person murmuring, trying to calm Luther down. He had a scar running along his head and his heartbeat was unsteady, nervous, but only slightly. 

Luther huffed, face still furious, but he let go of Klaus and stepped back, watching Klaus crumple to the floor and remain there. Then he turned and stormed out, taking with him that deafening thunder of a heartbeat he had. 

Klaus’ glossy eyes flicked upwards to the other man. He watched Klaus with a conflicted expression, his jaw locked, and then he turned around and walked out. 

### 

He just needed it. Just one more. Nobody would notice, and even if they did, what did it matter? 

What he needed to do wasn’t wrong. How could it be wrong if it’s what he needed to survive? And what did it matter if it was wrong? 

He could almost taste it. Copper, strong on his tongue and hot in his throat. 

He blinked. Someone was in front of him. He could be quick, do it so quickly, it would be fine – 

Then he blinked, and blinked again, until the vague sense of recognition blossomed and he realised it was Five in front of him. Klaus had one fist curled into his blazer and Five was talking to him in a low voice. His heartbeat was steady. He wasn’t scared. 

“Let go of me, Klaus,” he ordered, voice steady. His fingers pried Klaus’ free of his blazer and he stood up and backwards, looking Klaus up and down. “I think it’s time we moved, huh?” 

Klaus forced himself to remember. He and Five were trying to figure this out. He couldn’t eat because it was bad and he knew that and because he and Five needed to find out how far this went. 

Klaus swallowed down the phantom taste of blood and nodded. He stood up, wrapped his arms around himself, and followed Five out of his bedroom, wrestling to keep this grasp on reality. 

Five tried to place a hand on his arm, but he danced out of his reach. “Don’t touch me,” he muttered, clasping his hands together and pressing them against his chest. Five eyed him.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” he said, sounding so confident and sure of himself. Klaus giggled airily.

“You don’t know that,” he said, and they both fell silent once more, Klaus’ eyes watching his feet travel down the stairs.

“Where are you going?” 

Klaus looked up. All of his siblings were standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching he and Five descend. 

“I’m moving Klaus elsewhere,” said Five easily, turning to make sure that Klaus was still walking down the stairs and following him. 

“What do you mean? You can’t be helping him, Five,” hissed Luther. Five rolled his eyes. Coming off the stairs, he placed himself between them and Klaus, nudging Klaus in the direction of the stairs that led down to Vanya’s cage. 

“I’m trying to figure out what’s going on,” Five stated. “And perhaps we can find a way to cure him or a way around this. I’m actually doing something to help this situation. But right now, Klaus needs to be somewhere else.” 

Allison’s eyes were so cold, thought Klaus, as they bore into him. Vanya’s were alight with nervous fear. 

“Where are you taking him?” Diego asked, curious. Five pursed his lips. 

“He’s going into that room in the basement,” he stated. “I’m monitoring what happens when he doesn’t eat – the longest he’s gone is four days – but he needs to be somewhere he can’t get out of.” 

“You - you’re locking him up like an animal,” said Diego. 

“It’s not like he’s much better than one,” muttered Luther, face screwed up when he looked at Klaus, who in turn just closed his eyes and tilted his head up to face the ceiling. 

“He agreed to it-” 

“He’s half fucking conscious,” snapped Diego. 

“Now he is,” said Five, rolling his eyes. “We spoke about this before. He knows what’s going on.” 

“It’s for the best, anyway,” said Luther. “He should be in jail. The least we can do is put him there.” 

“Is there nowhere else?” Vanya piped up, hesitant, conflicted. 

“It’s the best place we have right now,” said Five. 

“Please,” muttered Klaus, though the words hardly felt like they left his lips. “Let’s go. Please.”

Five pressed his lips together, holding back whatever it was he had to say, and then he nodded. He gave one final stare to the others before turning and guiding Klaus away. 

Klaus watched as Five pulled at the wheel on the door, taking a moment before it began to loosen.

“Why are you helping me?” Klaus asked in a quiet voice. Five’s eyes flicked up, eyebrows drawing together and lips pressing together.

“Because,” he said. “This is a big problem that we need to fix.” And then, when the door opened, he paused, eying Klaus. “I did some shit to survive when I was with the Commission,” he stated. “And you’re my brother.” With that, he waved his hand in a gesture for Klaus to step inside, and he did so obediently, stumbling over the threshold and into the centre.

“I’ll be watching you,” said Five. And then, after a little hesitation. “You’ll be alright.”

Klaus’ lips curled upwards into a ghost of a smile. He didn’t bother saying anything; couldn’t make his tongue work like that anyway. He just listened to the door groan as Five closed it, listened to it thud shut and then the lock twist, and he was trapped inside, surrounded by those sound-devouring spikes, alone, and he fell forwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five's really pulling through huh?  
> Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: blood, gore, autocannibalism/self-mutilation.

The moments of coherency he had grew fewer and further in between and for shorter periods of time. He’d blink and he’d be sitting in the centre, staring at the floor, and then he’d blink and he’d be in the corner, head resting against one of those spikes. Another blink would send him sprawled across the floor, and by the next one he was standing by the door, staring out at Five, who he could only sometimes recognise, who was often staring right back at him.

Ben and Dave were in there with him sometimes, but Klaus couldn’t focus enough to listen to them or make them corporeal.

If he had thought that the four days he had managed to stretch before had been bad, it scarcely compared to now. The cramps in his stomach worsened, which he truthfully hadn’t thought possible, and he found himself curled up on the floor, digging his nails into his knees, or twisting his hair around his fingers.

The cramps brought tears rising to his eyes. He pressed his fingers into his stomach as if he might be able to massage the pain away. He felt like his stomach was eating itself, as if his intestines were shrivelling up and dying right then and there.

He was so _hungry._

When the cramps twisted his guts in a vice-like grip, he writhed on the floor, attempting to curl even further in on himself, and through gritted teeth he sobbed and cried out. It felt like razor sharp claws were digging through his skin, through muscle and fat, and they were stirring around in his guts, grabbing and tearing at everything they could.

It hurt. Everything hurt. It was nothing short of agony.

###

“Five, _please_! Please, please, please, let me out! I can’t do this, Five, _please_ -“

His voice cracked and his words fell apart, giving way to a violent sob. He was on his side on the floor, but acing the door. From where he lay, he couldn’t see out of the window in the door properly, however. He couldn’t be sure if Five was on the other side or not, but the cage he was in was no longer soundproof and he must be able to hear him.

“Five!” He wailed, screwing his eyes shut and dropping his head back onto the floor. “Please! I need out, Five!” His shoulders shook and it took all of his effort to move his arms to begin dragging himself across the floor, inching closer to the door. Within arms-reach of it, he sat upright against it and hit his fist against it.

“It _hurts_ , Five, listen to me – _please_! Five, Five, help me, please-“

###

“Five, you piece of shit, let me out! Let me out!”

His fist came down upon the door again and again as a cry of anger fell from his lips.

“I know you’re out there, Five! Just let me out! Why are you doing this to me? _Five_!”

He slumped against the door with a sob, only to twitch and hit the door again.

“ _Fuck_! Fuck you! I need out! I’m in _pain_ , Five, why won’t you listen to me? Fuck you! I trusted you! Five! You’re going to kill me – I’m _dying_ , Five, I need out! _Five_!”

###

He felt empty. And cold. So cold. Perhaps the floor beneath him was leeching his heat greedily.

He blinked. If he bothered enough to realise that he was coherent, he might be able to process the fact that he was laying on his back, once more near the centre of the room, and staring up at the ceiling. He might realise that his knuckles, his elbow and his shoulder hurt.

He blinked.

He was so cold.

A man – a ghost – was crouched beside him. He smiled at Klaus, his mouth moving and making noises that he couldn’t understand. But he was a ghost, so he didn’t matter. He had no heartbeat.

His mouth was dry. He blinked. He kept his eyes closed.

If he strained to listen, he thought he might hear heartbeats, but they were muffled and faint, far away. He wouldn’t be able to reach them. He needed to wait. He needed to conserve his energy – what for? For something. He would know when the time came.

So he kept his eyes closed, kept his body still, and he listened.

###

For a while, he listened to the heartbeats. They moved around but never came close to him, never came in the same room as him, so he remained still and biding his time.

He couldn’t be sure of how long he stayed like that for. Sometimes, one heartbeat would come closer than the others; within feet of him, but always on the other side of a door that wouldn’t budge, and he had given up on trying to get it open. Sometimes, the person with the heartbeat would roll their knuckles against the window of the door, as if trying to get his attention. Klaus wouldn’t even twitch in response.

If the heartbeat was going to stay out of his reach, it didn’t matter.

###

There was a heartbeat next to him.

His consciousness returned sharply, like the crack of a whip, following this realisation.

There was a hand on his forehead, a warm hand ( _hot, burning him, he was so cold_ ) and the heartbeat was steady.

He lunged. Throwing himself forwards suddenly, his hands shot out and curled into the heartbeat’s clothing. The heartbeat fell back in surprise and Klaus sat upon its hips. Prying his eyes open, he caught flashes of brown hair and schoolboy shorts. His teeth felt flesh, felt the hammering of the heartbeat beneath his tongue, faster with shock, and he felt dizzy with the warmth beneath him and the anticipation of blood about to spill, and he-

He fell onto the ground. The heartbeat was gone.

Klaus was cold.

He was hungry.

He was in pain.

He slumped to the ground in a boneless heap.

He didn’t know what was happening.

His face felt wet.

He closed his eyes.

###

He was going to die. How long had it been since he had last eaten? It must have been months ago. How long could one survive without eating? Surely he must been reaching the limit. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep on going for. He almost didn’t care. The pain, the emptiness, it was overwhelming.

How much longer would be spent on this floor? For how long would he have to stay trapped in this small room, doomed to starve forever?

But he found it was almost alright. As time continued to pass, it became harder to even think about that. It was harder to conjure coherent thoughts that really reached him. He thought nonsensical things that slipped between his fingers – half-thoughts that probably tried to be something but he didn’t remember what he was trying to think and he didn’t understand it either.

His mind simply became stupid and numb. His thoughts less coherent and then simply less in general. He knew few things: he was stuck. He was cold. He was hungry.

He didn’t know what to do. The ability to try and think up a plan had left.

His mind fumbled, now, to try to do such a thing.

He was stuck; he was cold; he was hungry. He needed to fix these things.

He couldn’t get out, otherwise he wouldn’t still be in here.

He was cold. He didn’t know how to warm himself up; he was always cold and nothing seemed to help.

He was hungry. His teeth throbbed to sink into food and if only he had a little, just a little, and he might be able to think more clearly. He only needed a little. But the only thing with flesh and blood around him was himself, though his heart didn’t beat and his body was as cold as a grave.

He twitched. His nose brushed against his wrist. His skin was cold but beneath it, there was the sharp smell of copper.

The smell was enough. Hardly registering that it was his, that it didn’t belong to a heartbeat, he lifted his wrist to his mouth and wrapped his lips around it. His teeth grazed the pale skin tauntingly and then they pressed down, pierced the skin with ease, and sunk deeper.

Blood oozed sluggishly to his tongue and, despite the way it was cold and bitter and tasted like death, nothing like anyone else’s, he lost himself to the motion of shifting his teeth just enough to keep coaxing more blood into his mouth, pursing his lips to suck, pressing his tongue flat to his skin.

He felt, for a moment, that it would work. That his mind would clear and he’d be safe to move, to help himself do whatever it was he needed. But the rush never came, the instant satisfaction never hit him. Nothing changed.

It confused him. He tasted blood, felt it on his tongue, felt his teeth in flesh, and he associated it with the instant relief that came with the motions and as foggy-minded as he was, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that it wasn’t working.

He pulled back, letting the wound bleed freely, and he turned his arm and bit elsewhere. More blood; bitter, rancid, cold.

It didn’t work. It didn’t work, it didn’t work, it didn’t work-

He bit along his arm, bit into his hand. When it didn’t work, he went for his other arm, his other hand. Blood flowed and nothing worked and why was nothing working? His teeth scraped along his skin, dragging long wounds marring his flesh like trenches, and then he bit deeper until his teeth met one another, and he pulled his head back. There was pain and he couldn’t help but make a high noise, confused and _it hurt why did it hurt he wanted to feel better he was so cold so hungry what was happening-_

His stomach twisted in unrest. Perhaps he had been dead too long and was unsatisfactory, too unlike something with a heartbeat now, but it did not work as he had hoped; his mind did not clear and his stomach did not ease.

He looked down at his arms, watched blood coat his pale skin and drip down and create puddles around him. He watched how it streaked across the floor when his hands clumsily dragged across the floor. Despite the fact that it didn’t help, he found himself, every so often, biting his teeth down – be it around his hand or his arm or craning his neck to reach his shoulders. He found himself doing it out of reflex and, somewhere deep down, it almost reminded him of how birds plucked their own feathers in stress.

He was so cold. So hungry.

He made a frustrated noise, one guttural and animalistic, choked in the back of his throat, and then he closed his eyes to hide from the taunting blood that wouldn’t work. He slumped forwards until he pitched forwards, head hitting the ground and his body following after it.

On the ground, with hopelessness festering inside him and feeling his mind begin to slip once more, his guts twisted and in some kind of reflex, he made a noise. He didn’t know what the noise meant or why he made it, but it felt right to cry it out in such a situation.

_“Ben.”_

###

Five did not know what to do – _yet_. He prided himself on the confidence that he would, eventually, have the answer to this horrific situation, but as it stood at the moment the answer evaded him.

He was relying on gaining some answers when monitoring Klaus. He could only guess so much when it came to powers that didn’t rely on equations and fact, and Klaus was hardly in his right mind to sit Five down and have an in-depth conversation about the afterlife.

His time was split between standing outside the door, watching Klaus, and in his bedroom, scrawling with chalk across his walls. He had torn through Reginald’s office, too, and found the records of the serum he created and had used on Luther. Though an interesting read, it proved, overall, useless in terms of helping Klaus.

And it seemed Reginald hadn’t had an idea about Klaus’ ability to rise from the dead, either. He found no notes on that, not even any thoughts on it, which, as infuriating as his father was, he was a smart man when approaching their powers and had he had something Five could have gone off of, this problem would have been solved before Klaus ever went into Vanya’s cage.

Truly, if one could ignore the pressing danger of the situation and the fact that it was his brother clearly suffering, it was an interesting situation.

Klaus had returned from the dead, and yet, in all circumstances, he was still dead, but standing and talking and perfectly aware. The only human thing that his body required, as far as Five was aware, was air and perhaps water. He needed no food – in fact, food only seemed to worsen his health – and yet it required blood and flesh or both his body and mind seemed to shut down. It was utterly fascinating on paper, but the reality of it was grim and disturbing when watching Klaus.

He didn’t quite know what to expect when Klaus stumbled into Vanya’s cage.

He watched Klaus sit down, and he hardly seemed to move. His head was tilted down and eyes staring at the floor. Then, after an hour or two, he would get up, blinking in confusion and, with a rather dazed expression, he would wander the perimeter of his cage. Sometimes he would simply stop and stand and stare at nothing in particular. The most unnerving part of it was when he would come and stand right by the door, and he would make eye contact with Five but his face would remain blank. He looked at Five with no recognition; as if he was instead simply staring straight through him.

Sometimes, he would simply lay curled up on the ground, and as his cramps worsened, he would cry out or groan and grit his teeth together. It wasn’t long after the yelling that the screaming followed.

The cage no longer devoured any sound made, and so Five heard it all. He had come within the blink of an eye when he first heard it. Klaus, screaming his name as if he was being murdered, sobbing and begging to be let out. Five almost had, too, before it had clicked that Klaus probably had no idea of what he was even saying himself. He was trying to manipulate Five out of reflex in the hopes that Five might let him out.

Five had hoped that might be the worst. It offered the idea that, despite what it may look like, Klaus’ consciousness was still intact and active if he was able to recognise Five and recall memories and enough social skill to try and lie to him.

Then he seemed to give up with that act, turning violent, and it only confirmed that Klaus didn’t know what he was saying. Accusing Five of hurting him, of putting him in there to die when he shouldn’t be able to die, I he was already dead.

He beat the door with his fists, rammed his shoulder against it and hit his elbows against it and screamed and Five couldn’t do anything.

He had left, hoping that his absence might make Klaus realise he was alone and stop yelling.

He had fumbled for coffee, his body feeling heavy and much older than the thirteen year old it was.

“What the hell’s going on down there?”

He almost startled at the voice. Instead, he huffed, focusing on grabbing down a mug from one of the cupboards.

“Withdrawals, you could say,” he answered shortly.

“Five,” Luther growled, and finally he turned to look at his other siblings all gathered in the entrance to the kitchen. Then he turned back to his coffee. It was more interesting.

“You said you were watching him,” accused Diego.

“And I was,” Five said. “But my presence right now was only aggravating him. So I’ll wait until he’s settled once more before going back down.” He blew lightly across the surface of his coffee and, before one of his siblings could open their mouth and say something that would undeniably irritate him, he disappeared to his bedroom.

###

The angered screaming had finished by the time he went back down to check on him.

Curious, Five stepped up to the door and peered through.

Klaus was laying down on his back close to the centre of the room. His eyes were closed and he was still. Five scrutinised him for several minutes. Klaus’ finger twitched.

Satisfied, he sat down in the chair he had brought with him earlier and thrust his hand through a gap in space to reach the book on his bedside table, pulling it to him there in the basement. He opened it up to a new page, took the pen clipped to the outside of it, and began to write this new update on Klaus’ state.

###

Klaus did not move for two days. Every time Five peered in at him, he was in the exact same position as he was before. Other than a very occasional twitch of his body or flutter of his eyelids, he never moved.

Five tried to get his attention by knocking on the window, only to watch Klaus’ still body remain so. It was as if he had simply fallen into a heavy sleep, one more like a coma than anything, though with the stillness of his body and paleness of his skin, he looked rather alike a corpse.

He didn’t think Klaus was injured in any way, but assumed that it was likely he was simply dissociating – he had mentioned losing time earlier, and being deprived of ‘food’ for so long might have exhausted him. From outside of the room, however, he could hardly tell.

So, safe in the idea that he wouldn’t get hurt, he teleported inside, stepping out of space and beside Klaus. He nudged his side with his toe first, eying him for any reaction. There was none. Then he crouched down, elbows settling on his knees, and he nudged him with his hand. No reaction.

“Klaus?”

Still, he didn’t react. With a sigh, he reached out to lay a hand on his forehead. He was freezing – colder than he had been the last time Five had checked, as if he only ever continued to lose any semblance of body heat he had.

There was no warning.

Klaus didn’t react to the hand on his forehead, but hardly three seconds later and his brother had lunged at him, getting the upper hand with Five’s shock. He found himself flat on his back, with Klaus’ hands curling into his blazer, and then one in his hair, forcing his head back, while he crawled over his body to pin his hips to the floor. His teeth grazed his throat within seconds and one look in his eyes told Five that there would be no calming Klaus in this situation. His eyes were glossy, almost feverish, and bloodshot. They held no recognition when they looked at Five; nor any emotion. He was simply acting on instinct.

Before his teeth could pierce his skin, Five was quick to thrust himself through a hastily torn gap in space, tumbling out of the other side in his bedroom, slightly dishevelled.

He took a moment to gather himself before standing upright, smoothing out his blazer and fixing his hair, and then he turned to look at the empty armchair that, should he still have Delores she would have sat in it, and said; “shit.”

###

Klaus returned to his comatose-like state following that incident, though one interesting thing, immediately following it, was that Five noticed tears on his face. They fell each time he blinked and he didn’t seem aware of them at all, but they were there nonetheless. Five wondered why he was crying; whether it was for himself or for Five, whom he had almost hurt if Five hadn’t been faster.

There was no way to tell.

But every time Five returned to the cage and peered in the door, Klaus was once more on the floor and unmoving.

It was interesting how quickly he had been able to move, and the strength he had in the way he grabbed Five. Five took note of it, though the best he could deduce from it was that the longer he went without eating and the more instinctual he became, the stronger and quicker he became – as if it was his body’s attempt to aid him in finding food. He wondered what the extent to that might be, though he wasn’t willing to find out personally.

###

Dinner was horrifically awkward. Since they had avoided the Apocalypse and regrouped, they made an attempt to have dinner altogether as much as they could. Since Klaus’ revelation, it had been incredibly awkward. Since Klaus being locked up in the basement, it had only gotten worse.

Five, however, could put up with a little awkwardness and tension. If they wanted to talk to him about it, they would have to do so. Five saw no point in indulging them with Klaus’ state if they showed no willingness to learn or to adapt.

So he ate his dinner in content silence until, finally, someone broke it.

“What’s going on?” Allison asked, clearing her throat. Five looked up to see her eyes on him and he raised an eyebrow slightly.

“What?”

She gave him an unimpressed look and then gestured vaguely downwards. Her trajectory was way off, he thought. Klaus wasn’t directly below them, but more to the left and further back into the house.

“Interested now?”

“He’s been down there for a while,” murmured Vanya, eyes on her plate. Five hummed.

“We’re still trying to figure out the extent of it all,” he stated vaguely with a shrug. “He has to stay there for longer.”

Everyone had stopped eating, turning their attention to Five, who stabbed his fork into a piece of salmon and dropped it into his mouth, chewing neatly.

“If you have questions, ask them, then,” he said snappily.

“Five,” said Vanya. “Just – please. Tell us what’s going.”

Five maintained eye contact with her for several moments before sighing in defeat, setting down his cutlery. “I’ve already told you,” he stated. “Klaus is dead, but somehow still conscious, though it seems his mind and body rely on blood and flesh to stay ‘alive’, in a sense. The longer he goes without it, the more he reverts to basic instincts and everything else seems to shut down. Earlier, it seemed he understood what was happening and panicked, trying to get me to let him out, but since he has been virtually comatose. I’ll keep monitoring him and try to figure either a potential cure or a way around this – I’ve been reading some of Dad’s medical notes, but nothing is catered to this kind of situation, obviously. If I can’t find that, then.” He shrugged. “I’ll help him find a humane way to stay sane.”

Luther’s face screwed up. “Five, you can’t help him-“

“If you’ve not noticed, Luther, you’re eating dinner with a bunch of murderers,” Five drawled. “We’ve all killed people here. Locking him up to rot will solve nothing, Luther, and what I’m looking for is a solution. Nothing will change if you go about slamming him into walls; you’ll probably just put yourself in the danger zone.”

Luther, at least, looked a little disturbed at that.

“What do you mean?” Diego asked. “If you don’t find a cure?”

Five sighed. “Well, there might not be one. I don’t think we can simply leave Klaus in there forever. I’d find a way that doesn’t include random night-murders to keep him stable. It might be the only thing we can do, depending on what happens,” he said with a shrug. He rose to his feet, picking up his plate and walking it over to the sink.

“I’ll go check on him again now. If you want to try and find a solution, you’re welcome to help me. If you’re going to pretend you can ignore this and it’ll all go away, and I’ve have to ask you to stay away.”

Diego stood up. He looked a little conflicted, hesitant. Five raised an eyebrow.

“I-I want to see him,” Diego declared. “I want to talk about this.”

Five hummed. “He won’t do much talking, but I guess we can.”

He swept his gaze over the rest of their siblings, but no one else stood. Five shrugged, jerked his head in a gesture for Diego to follow him, and then the two of them began to walk in the direction of the basement.

“How is he?”

“Likely still comatose,” he stated. “He won’t react to anything, so don’t bother. Though two people might get some attention.” He pressed his lips together. Klaus had mentioned hearing their heartbeats; perhaps two would serve to get his attention.

The walk to the cage felt longer than usual. Diego was tense beside him though putting on a brave face. Five was unfazed; walking closer to it, he expected to peer in and to see Klaus in the exact same position, unmoving.

“Shit.”

The curse tumbled off his lips unbidden at the sight that greeted him instead. Klaus, at the very least, was on the floor still. His eyes were half-lidded, staring into nothingness, and there was blood everywhere. It pooled around Klaus and stained his mouth and his chin, and his arms almost appeared to be in long red sleeves.

Klaus’ body trembled slightly, visible enough to Five, and he could hear the heaviness to his breaths from there. Klaus seemed rather oblivious to the fact that he was bleeding freely.

It didn’t take a genius to guess what had happened; what Klaus had done. He could see the wounds spread out around his arms, all similar in shape and size.

It must hurt, thought Five. Surely, that must hurt him.

But Klaus didn’t react at all, other than to close his eyes fully and remain limp on the floor.

Beside him, he heard Diego’s sharp intake of breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: cannibalism.

“What the fuck-“

Diego took a staggering step closer to the door, his eyes blowing wide as he peered inside. “Five, what – what the fuck? We need to get him out-“

His hands landed on the lock of the door, arms tensing as he began to unwind it, only for Five to shove him backwards and step in front of him. “You can’t go in there,” he stated, “it’s not safe-“

“Look at him, Five,” snapped Diego, his eyes turning wide onto Five as if he was disgusted by the notion that Five would simply allow Klaus to remain like that, alone. “How the hell is he going to hurt me like that?”

Five folded his arms over his chest. “Don’t forget, Diego, that he’s already dead. He isn’t dying, he won’t die, and I doubt that will even slow him down if you go in there. It’s not safe.”

Diego’s cheeks puffed out in frustration, eyes bouncing between Five and the window and Klaus’ form beyond it. “We can’t just leave him there, Five,” he grit out, his hands balling into tense fists by his side. Five pressed his lips together.

“And we won’t – but we can’t go inside and help him,” Five insisted. He turned around to peer inside. Klaus, save for the minor tremble seizing his body, was once more still and proved unresponsive when Five gained no reaction from knocking his knuckles against the glass. He couldn’t see well enough from this distance and if Klaus remained in there he wouldn’t be able to monitor whether or not the injuries if he had inflicted on himself were dangerous or if they might heal on their own. Though, Five supposed, what was there to say that, even if they did heal on their own, Klaus would let them? Would he just continue to reopen them or create new wounds?

Five sighed, turning back to Diego.

“We can’t go in and help him right now. He’s too far gone.”

He needed to make a decision and he was stalling. He knew he was.

Either he kept Klaus in there and continued to monitor him or use the cage to safely hold him while he tried to continue his research but risk Klaus getting injured, or he found something _(someone)_ for Klaus to eat and, hopefully, come back to himself, allowing his wounds to get looked over and allowing Klaus to be in a better mental and physical state, but risk losing any potentially important data that might show itself soon.

What was more important? Prolonging his brother’s suffering in the hopes that he soon found a cure, or stamp out that possibility to help him now?

Muffled through the door, he heard Klaus moan; something low and guttural. Five turned to look at him through the window. His eyes were open half-way, staring at nothing, and then his body twitched. His eyes rolled lazily around him as if making an attempt to look around him but not actually processing what he was seeing.

He looked straight out of a horror movie, with that dead look in his eyes and the blood and the wounds covering him. It was enough to make Diego inhale sharply and look away, grinding his teeth.

“What do we do?” Diego asked, finally facing Five once more. Five sighed.

“There are only two things we can do,” he said with a frown. “Either we leave him like this and hope we find a different way we can help, or we get him something to eat.”

Diego twitched. “Five,” he said, voice low. “We can’t just – just kill someone.”

Five shrugged. “Klaus made an effort to target bad people. Surely there’s a murderer on death row that won’t be missed.”

“ _Five_.”

“Look at him, Diego, and tell me what you want me to do,” he said, voice cool. Diego’s eyes flicked briefly to Klaus and he sighed.

“I don’t know, Five,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. This whole situation is fucked, alright?”

Five nodded his head in agreement, leaning back against the door. “I know,” he muttered, folding his arms across his chest. He turned his head to watch Klaus, once more still and motionless. “I’ll go over everything I know tonight. If I can’t find anything, then I’ll have to give him something to eat. I don’t want to risk him properly injuring himself; I won’t let it go on for much longer.”

Diego eyed him, silent as he waged some conflict within himself, and then he nodded. “Alright,” he said. “I want to help.”

Five pursed his lips, eying Diego carefully before he nodded. He gestured to the chair. “Watch him. I’ll be in my room. If he does anything, come get me. And,” he paused just before he could step through space and into his bedroom. “No matter what he does, or what he says; do not let him out, Diego.”

Five held Diego’s gaze for several prolonged moments, his eyes cold and serious, until Diego nodded, looking a little unsettled.

“Alright,” he muttered. “I won’t. I’ll come get you if anything happens.”

Five nodded, satisfied. With one last look over his shoulder at his brother, he found himself in his bedroom.

###

Diego was conflicted.

The situation at hand was horrific. He could deal with the idea that Klaus’ powers allowed him to return from the dead. He could deal with the fact that he had no pulse, too, or that he was somewhere in between life and death, something that Diego didn’t really understand but it meant that Klaus was still here with them.

But the idea that he was basically something straight out of a horror movie, the idea that he had been sneaking out at night to kill, and to go further and to cannibalise a person with such raw, animalistic nature; it made Diego feel sick, in all honesty.

He had been attempting to rekindle his relationship with Eudora and hearing her be assigned to such an odd case, he thought that he might be able to help and he had shown up when the second death was brought to light. He had seen that corpse. It looked as if a pack of dogs had had their way with the poor man. No person should be physically able to do such a thing, and the idea that it was Klaus who had done it? He almost couldn’t stomach it.

He did his best to avoid Klaus, unwilling to confront the problem and unable to look him in the eye without seeing that body.

On the other hand; it was his brother, and he had seen the haunted look in his eyes following the interaction in the courtyard, and following the fight between him and Luther in the living room, he had seen how dazed and empty his eyes had seemed. How it was as if he had no clue who Diego was or what had just happened.

Five had made valid points and he knew that shunning Klaus would do nothing, when he could be helping Five try to find a way to help Klaus. Nothing good would come from ignoring Klaus.

Plus, when he lingered by the top of the stairs leading into the basement after Five had locked Klaus in Vanya’s cage, he could hear his yelling. It had been nonstop for a long time; screaming for Five to let him out, begging with him and sounding as if he was being tortured, and it had gone on for hours before changing to furious yells and loud thuds, accusations that Five was hurting him, killing him; and Diego had believed it. He was screaming bloody murder; worse than any withdrawals he had seen Klaus in.

He had tried to go down then, alarmed, and he had met Five half-way down the stairs.

“What the fuck, Five?”

“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Five had told him. “He’s fine.”

 _“Five! Get back here, Five! Don’t leave me here!”_ There was a serious of thuds; Klaus throwing himself at the door. _“Five! I’m dying, Five!”_

“Sure sounds like he’s fine,” he snorted. “Five, what are you doing?”

“It’s withdrawals, I told you. He’s fine, Diego. It’ll pass. Don’t go down there.”

Diego had been entirely sceptical about that but the look in Five’s eyes had made him turn around on his brother’s screams and trust Five instead.

He’d had time to think about it, though, and whether or not he was comfortable with what Klaus had done, the only thing they could do was try and look for a solution, else nothing would change.

Sitting in the chair that Five had brought down with him, his eyes kept flicking briefly to Klaus before hastily looking away, as if he was guilty to keep looking. Klaus seemed not to notice the fact that he was laying in his own blood. He was on his back, his eyes fluttering beneath his eyelids and occasionally opening half way, though he seemed not actually take anything in. Every so often, his body would twitch or jerk, or he’d go to move only to give up; he’d lift his arms and let his hands linger in the air before thudding back down onto the floor, or onto himself. It almost looked as if he was high, but Diego knew better.

He couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his head at that moment in time. What was he thinking? Did he know what was going on around him?

Had Five found anything out? A cure, a solution, a way around this? Diego hoped so.

Every so often, he would stand and walk up to the door and peer inside and watch Klaus. He rolled his knuckles across the window in an attempt to get Klaus’ attention, but he didn’t so much as look in his direction. He was stuck in his own world that was confined in those walls, though Diego wondered if it even went as far as that. He wondered if his own world was just confined to the edge of the growing puddle of blood.

A shiver ran down his spine and he sat down once more.

###

Klaus moaned.

Diego almost shot up at the sound, stumbling over his own feet to get right by the window and peer inside.

Klaus’ eyes were open, though they looked as if they were glazed over. They flitted around like a person waking up from anaesthesia, confused about their surroundings, though no look of recognition or understanding ever settled.

Diego knocked on the window lightly. Klaus’ eyes shot over to him and his lips twitched, his nose twitched, and then he looked away once more. Diego sighed in defeat, leaning against the wall. The temptation to just open the door and go in, to call Grace and have her check him over was strong. He wasn’t sure whether or not Klaus’ wounds had stopped bleeding or not, but there were a few that were evidently worse than others and he had no idea how Klaus was still moving (though he rarely did, to be honest) in any other way than writhing in pain.

He lingered by the door, arms folded over his chest, lips pressed together in a tight line. He heard the occasional twitch from Klaus behind him, a quiet, muffled noise, but nothing coherent or aware. With a sigh, Diego returned to the chair and sat down.

###

Klaus sat up.

Diego saw the movement from the corner of his eyes and he too sat up quickly, attention on his brother. His eyes were wide as he looked around, his lips parted. His glossy eyes were fixed on the ceiling, as if watching something move above him.

Diego narrowed his eyes.

Above him, there was a loud bang and the sound of footsteps storming into the Academy.

Klaus didn’t jump, but Diego did; especially when he heard gunshots.

He jumped up onto his feet, doubling over to pull a knife from each one of his boots, and then he held his breath and listened.

Gunshots. Footsteps. Luther yelling.

Diego threw a look to Klaus. He was once more on his back, but his eyes were wide open and seemed to be tracking the footsteps above him. He was probably the safest out of all of them in there, Diego told himself, and then he turned around and ran upstairs.

His feet carried him through the kitchen and he hurried to press himself to the wall before inching closer to the doorway, where the gunshots echoed from.

There was a flash and Five was suddenly beside him.

“What’s going on?” Diego asked, eyes jumping between his brother and the door. Five’s face was cold, his teeth gritting together.

“Commission,” he muttered. “Damnit. I’d hoped they’d stay away for good, but they’ve already given us too much time. I should have expected it.”

Diego raised an eyebrow curiously, though there was no time to talk about it. In the blink of an eye, Five was gone, and Diego too surged forwards to peer around the door.

There was six people dressed head to toe in some sleek, dark body suit, no doubt protective, and their faces were covered with matching helmets. Each one wielded a gun in their hands, save for the seventh one who was on the ground – his gun was in Five’s hands.

Allison was fighting one of them, inching closer towards the staircase, and Vanya was nowhere to be seen but the chandelier was swaying gently above them. Luther was taking on two of them, weaving through the pillars to use them as a shield. Five was fighting one, disappearing and reappearing every other second, and the remaining two were off to the side, trying to get a clear shot at any of them.

Diego threw a knife with the flick of his wrist and then followed it around the doorway, rushing forwards. The knife embedded itself with an audible thud into one man, and Diego took the opportunity to rush him. He brought his knee to his stomach, hands on his shoulder forcing him forwards, and then he wrestled with him for the gun still in his hands, pointing it up to the ceiling when he pulled the trigger. His eyes continued to jump around the room, keeping an eye on all of the other assailants to ensure he wasn’t about to be snuck up on.

He heard a cringe-worthy crash as Luther threw one man into a pillar. The man, unsurprisingly, did not get back up. There was a gunshot and he saw the man Five was fighting crumple to the ground.

“I want one alive!” Hollered Five, eyes narrowed as he took in the scene around him before disappearing in a flash, reappearing elsewhere.

Diego returned his attention to the man in his grasp, jerking the gun upwards to hit his chin, and then he brought his fist down onto his cheek. The gun fell from the man’s grasp and he turned it on him, pulled the trigger, and turned around.

It was quiet.

The fight was over quickly - he was tempted to say too quickly. Diego let the gun clatter to the ground. He heard footsteps hurrying down the stairs and turned to see Vanya hurrying close and, with a few deep breaths, the chandelier stopped swaying. Allison was brushing her hair out of her face and Five was looming over the man restrained in Luther’s grasp.

He leaned forwards, tore the helmet off the man’s face, and in a voice that sent shivers down his spine, Five said; “tell me everything.”

###

Luther had moved the bodies into one pile before they all retreated to the living room, save for Five who had placed his hand upon the remaining attacker’s shoulder and both had disappeared to some other room in the Academy. Diego was glad; he was sure he didn’t want to know what Five was up to with the man.

“Drinks?” Allison joked, falling onto the couch and jerking her head towards the bar.

“I think we deserve it,” Diego said, slumping into an armchair. “Those Commission freaks are set on us, huh?”

“It’s Five we have to talk to about this,” Luther returned, eyes flicking upwards as if he might be able to see Five through the floor.

“He said that he was surprised they gave us this long without attacking.”

“Think they’ll come again?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“At least it’s not _those_ two.”

There was a collective groan. “At least they put up more of a fight.”

Diego gave a look. “Exactly. I’m not trying to get my ass beat, even if I could take them out quicker than you could.”

Luther’s chest puffed out slightly and he sat a little upright at the challenge. “I don’t think so,” he stated. Diego hummed.

“I do,” he returned.

“ _Diego_ ,” muttered Allison, giving him an unimpressed look. Diego shrugged, twirling a knife between his fingertips.

“What do you think Five’s doing?” Asked Vanya. From the floor above, there was an audible thud. Allison grimaced.

“I don’t want to know,” she said, and then she stood and sauntered over to the bar.

“Make that two,” said Diego.

“Three,” said Five, suddenly in the living room. Diego forced himself to not startle.

His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and he was using a handkerchief to wipe blood off his knuckles, and then he threw it aside and it disappeared with a ripple of blue light.

“Have fun beating the shit out of a guy?” Diego asked. Five gave him a brief look.

“I was getting information,” he said, “and it worked.” A pause. “For the most part. I got what I needed, though I would have liked more but he’s refusing to cooperate and I don’t have the patience to make him.”

“What did you find out?” Asked Allison.

“The Commission has regrouped and are, unsurprisingly, not very happy with us for successfully averting the Apocalypse. No doubt more will come soon to try and have my head on a stick.” Five disappeared. He now stood at the bar, taking the whiskey right out of Allison’s hand and pouring a generous glass. “Stay on alert. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had more tonight, never mind tomorrow. What just happened was hardly more than a skirmish, I would have expected them to send more people.”

“So, what? We just keep fighting them off?” Luther asked incredulously. Five downed his whiskey, which looked somewhat unnerving when he looked like a thirteen year old.

“For now, yes. I’ll look into it.”

“We need a promise here, Five,” said Luther. His tone picked up but he seemed aware of it because he cleared his throat, shifted, and then said, “we can’t just be looking over our shoulders every day, waiting for them to come back.”

Five sighed, glaring at the bottom of the glass in his hand. “I know,” he muttered, then waved his free hand dismissively. “I’ll sort it, alright?”

“What are we going to do with the bodies?” Vanya asked, quiet.

“Pogo will sort it out,” Luther said. “He always does.”

Five paused. “I’ll sort them out,” he declared.

“What?”

Five shrugged, looking away. “They’re Commission. They might have trackers or something on them. I’ll deal with them.”

His eyes caught Diego’s, though brief, and Diego understood. Diego looked away.

“I’ll go check on Klaus,” he muttered, standing up and heading back towards the stairs leading to the basement. By the time he arrived, Five was already at the door.

“Did he move at all?” Five asked, peering in at Klaus.

“Before the Commission broke in, he sat up. It was as if he could hear them. That’s it.”

Five hummed.

Klaus didn’t seem to have moved since laying back down, though his eyes seemed to move beneath his eyelids and his throat worked as if he was struggling to breathe or struggling to speak.

For a moment, they were both quiet. Diego swallowed.

“Tell me you’ve figured something out,” he asked. Five didn’t respond. “ _Five_ -”

“If I could get to him,” said Five, “I might be able to figure something out. If I could get him so that he wouldn’t attack me, I might be able to see something I’m missing.”

“Five-“

“But he moves too fast like this, and he’s stronger, and I don’t trust Luther to help with this-“

“ _Five_. What are we going to do?”

Five sucked in a breath. “It’d be cruel to leave him like this for who knows how long,” Five muttered. “Both physically and mentally – we can’t tell what kind of toll this might be having on his mind. We now have multiple still-warm corpses. I didn’t kill that other guy.”

Diego’s stomach twisted and he forced himself to look at Klaus. “He can’t stay like that,” he said. Five nodded wordlessly, then he seemed to make up his mind. “I’ll be a second.” He disappeared. Less than five seconds passed and he was back, his fist curling into the shirt of the still-alive Commission member, heavily bruised and hissing in pain.

“Nothing else to say?” Five asked, hefting him up to look him in the eye. The man glared at him, more resolve than Diego would probably have with that murderous glint in Five’s eyes, and he simply shook his head. Five looked at Diego. “I wouldn’t advise watching,” he said.

He appeared inside the cage with Klaus, dropping the Commission member to the ground, and then teleporting once more to Diego’s side. Both of them had eyes on the man and Klaus.

The man backed away from Klaus, looking rightfully frightened; he probably thought he’d been thrown into a cage with a brutally murdered corpse.

And then Klaus opened his eyes. He remained staring at the ceiling above him for several moments, his body tense. His nose twitched and his head rolled to face the man, staring at him with wide eyes. He sat up, body moving sluggishly. For a moment, Diego believed he might just do nothing.

And then, with a startling speed, Klaus wasted no time in throwing himself forwards at the man. He barrelled into him and they both tumbled to the floor, Klaus sitting on top of him. One hand attempted to tangle into the man’s short hair but found no purchase, so moved to grab his jaw and shove it upwards, forcing him to expose his throat.

The man jerked, thrashed, and yelled. Diego grimaced and turned away, trying not to focus on the dying sounds of the man before he fell silent. He kept his head turned away, his eyes closed and his arms folded across his chest, fingers digging into his flesh in an attempt to distract himself.

He couldn’t be sure how much time passed, but beside him Five shifted and he dared to look up, focusing on Klaus himself rather than the mess beneath him. Klaus’ head was tipped back, his body all loose, and his eyes were wide and staring at nothing. Then they rolled back in his skull and he fell to the floor with a thud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thrive off feedback, so I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: cannibalism, blood and injury, gore.

There was…

There was a floor, beneath him. Was it wet? He thought it might be. He couldn’t be sure. Maybe not so much wet as another kind of word. What kind of word? He didn’t know.

Above him, the world ended. The world ended. No? No. It was a ceiling. There was a ceiling above him.

Around him; shapes. Dark shapes, sharp shapes. Walls?

What was he thinking about?

He swallowed. There was blood in his mouth and he swallowed heavily, greedily. His tongue dashed across his teeth.

His head felt a mess. His mind felt like a shattered mirror; it was hard to keep track of his thoughts, even harder to make them in the first place. 

His body ached distantly, like a healing bruise had been poked but it was everywhere, and he was blissfully aware of the fact that his stomach was soothed. There was no furious cramping, no continuous throb; it was perfectly settled. He had eaten. 

It still felt like he was trying to find his way back to himself, though. Wading through a thick swamp that was his mind, grappling to crawl back into his body. Each movement – a blink, a breath, a twitch – left him reeling and disconnected for several seconds. He looked down at his hands. Paused. _Looked_. Coated in blood, marred by bite marks. By his wrist, he saw bone. Midway down his forearm, he could see bone. 

He looked to his other hand to see it in a similar state. Bloody, bitten, bone. It ached, but for the most part it simply felt weird. Unsettling. 

What happened? He could remember walking into this cage, and he could remember flashes; staring at the floor, the wall. Frustrations, heartbeats, pain. Confusion. 

He was still in the room. 

There was a knock at the door. His head snapped to it (the room span) and he saw Five and, behind him, Diego, both staring at him. They were watching him. Why? What did they want? 

His nose twitched and he turned to look at the body beside him and then his face twisted. It was easily the worst one yet. He could see scratches on bone, as if he had sat and chewed on it like a dog. 

Klaus looked back at his hands. Had he done that? Obviously, he had – who else would have done such a thing? 

He heard the lock on the door begin to twist free, and then the door groaned as it was pulled open. Diego tried to rush in but Five held out a hand and made him step closer with hesitation, caution. 

“Klaus?” 

Klaus swallowed. He ought to tell them he was fine – that _they_ were fine, actually. That he wouldn’t hurt them. 

A drop of blood fell from his fingertip. 

“Klaus?” 

He swallowed once more, his tongue dashing out across his blood-stained lips. “I’m fine,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “I’m - here.” 

Five slumped slightly with relief and came closer. He crouched beside Klaus. His shoes were in blood. 

“Look at me, Klaus.” 

Klaus blinked. He looked up. Five’s face filtered into his vision, his eyes narrowed, lips pursed. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he asked. Diego made a noise. 

“Can we please leave here?” 

Five waved him off and turned back to Klaus. “Do you need more?” He asked, eyebrows furrowing. Klaus considered that. Did he? Usually, he felt on top of the world by now. Usually, he felt like his senses had all been sharpened and fine-tuned. He felt none of that now, and he felt too aware to eat.

“Who – who was that?” He asked instead.

“Commission member. Don’t think about it. Do you need more? You need to talk to me, Klaus.”

He was trying, he thought, only he wasn’t really. He was stuck in his thoughts.

He had gone so far. He had completely lost himself – no. He himself had simply ceased to exist. There had been no sliver of himself huddled in the depths of his consciousness, there had been no conscience, no thought. No, once more, he was wrong. There had been thought – it had simply been primal. Was that how animals thought? How could he be so easily stripped apart, piece by piece, layer by layer, until all that remained was some mindless beast.

_Heartbeats. Too far. Trapped. Stay still. Wait. So hungryhungryhungryhungryhungry._

A shiver ran down his spine.

“Klaus?” Repeated Five, tapping his cheek. Klaus blinked.

“I want out,” he said, then he said it again. “I want out, Five, I want out, I want to leave-“

Five stood up, nodding at Diego, and both of them took one of his arms (rather hesitantly, he noticed, though he couldn’t blame them with the state they were in) and draped it over their shoulder (Diego) or wrapped an arm around his torso (Five.)

His legs were shaky as he walked, leaning heavily onto Diego, though he assumed that it was all more so something mental – his legs had been fine earlier, no doubt, and they didn’t hurt now, but he was still reeling mentally and having trouble focusing on making himself move.

“We’ll take you to the infirmary,” Five said, more so to Diego than Klaus himself, once they began to near the stairs. “And we’ll have Grace come and look at your wounds. Do they hurt?”

Klaus lifted one foot and placed it on the next stair, heaving himself up it with his brothers’ help. He mulled the question over before shaking his head. “No – not really. No.”

Five’s expression briefly turned thoughtful and he nodded, then faced upwards again and focused on trudging slowly up the stairs. “Anything else? Physically, mentally? Do you need more, Klaus?”

Klaus swallowed. “I don’t – I don’t know. I-“ He sucked in a breath and looked at the blood under his nails. “My head’s a mess. Just give me time. I – oh my god.”

“You okay, bro?” Diego asked him, giving him a look of concern. Klaus focused on watching his feet.

“Can we – can we never do that again?” He requested. “Please, Five.”

Five pressed his lips together and looked Klaus up and down. “I don’t think it would be a good idea,” he murmured. “Come on, let’s get you to Mom first.”

Klaus grunted his acknowledgement and they fell quiet, focusing on getting past the stairs and onto flat ground, which he was grateful for. It was easier to walk here.

“You said the Commission,” he muttered, eyes flicking up to look at Five. “What?”

“The Commission attacked,” said Five. “I’d assume they’ll attack again soon. No one got injured.”

Klaus let out a hum of acknowledgement, once more focusing on his feet. They made their way into the corridor and Five stood a little. “Diego, have you got him? I’ll go find Mom.”

Diego raised his eyebrows before nodding. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got him.” He replaced Five’s arm around his waist with his own, shifting slightly, and they continued on their way to the infirmary without Five. He helped Klaus settle onto one of the bed, slowly unwinding himself from his side and taking a step back. There was smeared blood on his hands and his jumper.

Diego pulled a seat close to him and sat down. “How are you?” He asked. Klaus stared at his hands.

“I did this,” he said, staring at his own torn flesh that glistened crimson and wet. Diego pressed his lips together and did not look.

“Mom will help,” he offered.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Klaus added, turning his hand. He could see bones. His own bones. He had done that.

“Good. That’s good, Klaus,” said Diego, a little awkwardly. He looked down at his blood-stained hands and bit his lip, and Klaus slid back to lay down on the bed. His body still trembled and he didn’t know why.

He wondered when he had done that. When he had gotten so far that he’d resorted to trying to eat himself. It made him feel sick. He wanted to close his eyes and fall asleep for a long time, but he forced himself to keep his eyes open and look around. He knew where he was, now. Knew that the shapes around him were furniture, and he knew what kind of furniture it all was. He wanted his mind to remain that way.

A moment passed and there was a flash, announcing Five’s entrance, followed by the scrape of a chair as he pulled it close. “Are you alright?” He asked, voice uncharacteristically soft. Klaus made a noise.

“Tell me we don’t have to do that again,” he pleaded.

“I’m not going to make you do that again.”

Klaus nodded. “Good. Good. Then I’m fine.”

Five didn’t look too convinced when he dared to peek out at him. He raised an eyebrow, fixing Klaus with an unrelenting, uncomfortable stare that seemed to drill right into the marrow of his bones. Klaus squirmed slightly on the bed and looked away.

“Fine,” he muttered, sighing heavily. “I’m just – it’s my mind. It was dark, Five. That mind set – it’s disturbing. You might as well have just put a fucking collar on me.” He sighed, dragged his bloody hands down his equally bloody face. “I don’t know. Right now – maybe I need more, I don’t know. I’ve never went that long before. Can I just go have a bath?”

Five looked thoughtful for a moment. “Let Mom have a look over you, you can eat more if you need, then bathe,” he said. Klaus sighed at the plan but nodded, dropping his head back onto the pillow. It wasn’t long before he heard the familiar click of heels before Grace entered. Her eyes fell swiftly onto Klaus and she frowned.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Look at you; you’re in such a state.” She came closer, pursing her vibrant lips and surveying him up and down, then she rested a hand on a small space of untouched skin on his arm. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you sorted in no time.” She turned, then, to look at his brothers, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll have to ask that you give us some privacy, boys.”

Five frowned, eyes flicking back to Klaus, who in turn gave him a lazy thumbs up. With a sigh, both he and Diego stood, nodded, and put enough space between them that Grace could separate them with a curtain.

Grace slipped her hand into Klaus’ and squeezed gently. “Just relax, dear, and I’ll be done soon.”

Klaus offered a swift smile and a nod before he looked away. He trusted Grace, though he was afraid of how much she’d be able to do for him; the wound weren’t clean cuts, and they were deep. He had no idea how one even went about trying to tend to them.

He was grateful that Grace started to clean his skin, though. He looked as if he had taken a bath in blood; covered from head to toe in it, and he himself was still bleeding; moving had irritated his own wounds that hadn’t properly healed. His clothes were stained and his hair matted with it; he had never wanted a shower more in his life.

He let his eyes slip shut, trusting Grace to take care of him, and he tried not to think much about anything at all.

###

“Hey, Klaus. Wake up.”

Klaus’ face screwed up when someone prodded his cheek. Prying his eyes open, he turned to see Five standing by his bed.

“What?”

“Grace finished what she could,” he told him. “But it seems you’re healing a bit on your own. Rather quickly, too.” Klaus’ eyebrows knitted together and he looked down at his pale arms. There were many wounds that had been stitched together, but many that had been left alone, and they looked much better than they had when he had last looked at them. Knitting itself back together; he could catch no sight of bone anymore.

“Huh,” murmured Klaus, nodding. “Rad.”

Five snorted. “Are you feeling better?”

Klaus dragged a hand down his face. “A bit,” he said, accompanying it with a shrug. Five leaned back, pursing his lips.

“I’m sorry for pushing it,” he muttered. “I had hoped that, by now, I would have found something to help you in some way. I didn’t expect to have you down there for so long.”

Klaus sat up a little, waving his hand. “Hey,” he said, “none of that. You did your best, huh, and I agreed. I just,” he pressed his lips together. “Maybe there isn’t something we can do, Five. I don’t want to go back to that place; that mind set.”

Five nodded his head. “And I won’t make you,” he insisted. “I’m just curious to see how you heal on your own. You said that eating makes you feel good? Perhaps it boosts your body.”

Klaus hummed, fingers twisting the blood-stained blanket beneath him. “Who knows,” he murmured, and then he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He hesitated, toying with his bottom lip. “You said – you said you had more,” he murmured, dropping his voice low. Five nodded.

“Yes.” He thought for a moment. “Come to the bathroom in the second bedroom hallway.” And, with a flash, Five disappeared. Klaus groaned, rubbing his eyes and standing up. He hauled himself out of the infirmary, wiggling his fingers as if trying to subtly wake himself up, and began the trek to the bathroom.

“Klaus.” Ben fell into step beside him, eying him up and down. “You’re awake. Are you alright?”

Klaus swallowed, briefly glancing at him and then nodding. “Nothing a strong dose of coke won’t help.”

Ben gave him an exasperated look and Klaus offered a half-hearted grin. “You know I’ve not done that for a while,” he drawled, rolling his eyes and facing forwards. “Five’s taking good care of me, bro.”

“Only one of our siblings with some common sense,” Ben grumbled, folding his arms over his chest.

“I think Diego gained a brain cell.”

Ben snorted, but remained quiet.

Five was in the bathroom by the time he arrived. In the bathtub, there was a body.

“Christ,” muttered Klaus, closing the door behind him and locking it. “Warn a guy before showing him a body, won’t you?”

“It’s nothing either of us haven’t seen,” Five said, rolling his eyes before gesturing at it. “Have at it, then.”

“I love your manners, Five.” He swallowed, eying the body for several moments, conflicted. His stomach chose that time to twist – not painfully – and he looked between it and Five. “When did it – _he_ – die?”

Five shrugged. “Not long ago. Unless you don’t hurry up, he’s still warm.”

Klaus pressed his lips together.

_Warmwarmwarmwarmwarm._

A shiver ran down his spine and he took a few steps closer, reaching down to grab the man’s wrist. Cool, but he’d felt living people that were colder. Grace must have worked fast on him, he thought.

Could he really do it, being so aware of what he was about to do? But the man was dead already. It wasn’t as if Klaus was killing him. He couldn’t help but lean close, pressing his nose to his wrist and inhaling the sweet scent of blood beneath his skin, filling every crevice of his lungs with it.

He forced himself to turn and eye Five, still watching him intently. “Are you really just going to stand there and watch?” He asked, frowning.

“I want to see if it helps your wounds or not,” responded Five with a shrug. Klaus stared at him for several moments longer before sighing, turning around and, before he could hesitant, he sunk his teeth into his wrist.

“Try and keep the blood in the bathtub,” commented Five. Klaus didn’t respond. He did try and lean closer to the body and consequently further into the tub, his hands pressing the arm further into his mouth, forcing his teeth deeper into flesh. He was relieved to have the familiar burst of taste on his tongue and he leaned eagerly forwards. He forgot about Five, forgot about his reservations about doing this, lost to the pleasure of eating and the buzz it brought.

He had feared that he had stopped feeling that rush. That he’d be stuck chasing a high that he could never get, and that he’d revert to back to that mindless state in Vanya’s cage.

Though this man wasn’t hot like how he preferred it, he was still warm and it would do for now.

He thought he might have heard Five _tch_ and comment about blood, but it was unimportant in the face of feeding his high. His teeth travelled up his arm and he might as well have stepped over into the bathtub, leaning so far over the edge, the rim digging into his stomach.

Five stayed silent, forgotten, observing until Klaus finally sat back, swallowing multiple times and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Better?” Five asked, and Klaus almost startled. He turned back to look at him and let out a sigh before he nodded. “Good,” he muttered.

Klaus pushed himself up onto his feet, heading towards the sink and leaning forwards to bring the water to his face, scrubbing at his chin. The water trickled down tainted pink, swirling hypnotically down the drain.

Five pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against and came up to Klaus. He took hold of one of his arms and turned it, eying it up and down. Klaus raised an eyebrow at him but let him do it.

“There was a bite there,” Five declared, poking his arm. Where he touched, however, was unmarred, smooth skin. “I think I was right in my assumption about you eating.”

“It’s one thing to be a corpse, I don’t want to look the part,” Klaus said. Five gave a half-hearted snort, distracted as he studied Klaus and then stepped back with a thoughtful hum.

“There isn’t much else we can do just now,” he said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “I’ll have to get rid of him soon, though, or he’ll just rot in the tub. I’ve moved the others; they should be fine for a while; come see me if you need me to get one of them. If something happens, come find me. Keep an eye out for the Commission; I suspect they’ll be back soon.”

Klaus hummed. He eyed his reflection in the mirror just to ensure there was no more blood staining his skin, and then he nodded. “You got it,” he uttered, then turned. “I’m going to go find a bathtub without a corpse in it.”

Five’s eyes followed him out of the bathroom and into the corridor. Klaus was eager to be alone and didn’t spare a glance back; hurrying his legs to take him into his favoured bathroom where he ran the bathtub and threw his ruined clothes aside.

He tried not to look too closely at himself when he stepped inside the tub, steaming water rising up his body. He tried not to look at the pale skin or the blood beneath his nails, or the raw, healing skin; wounds created by himself. He tried not to think too much about the taste of blood clinging to his teeth, or the slip in thoughts that drifted to short, dumb, basic things every so often.

Instead, he simply closed his eyes and sunk back into the bathtub and let the water rise over his chin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone get this boy a nice blanket or something


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!  
> Warnings for: violence, cannibalism, death.

“Remember when Jackson tried to out-drink you? Skinny thing like you, he thought you’d get three shots in and be gone to the wind. He got through, what? Eleven shots? Twelve?”

“Twelve and _a half._ He fell off the stool before he finished it and spilled it everywhere.”

Dave laughed at that, nodding. “Yeah, oh yeah. Toms’ had to go take him to bed and you finished the rest of the bottle and then some. No one ever bet against you after that.”

Klaus’ lips were curled upwards in a smile and he nodded against Dave’s shoulder, chest bouncing in a soft chuckle. “In his defence, he also had a beer or two before I sauntered down and intimidated him.”

Dave snorted. His hand ran through Klaus’ hair soothingly. “And in the morning you offered to hold his hair back while he threw up his guts.”

“He was horrified that I looked fine,” hummed Klaus. “I think I scared him more than any Charlie could have, that day. No one did tell him you had to carry me to bed though, did they?”

Dave grinned. “No, no. Team pact; had to make Jackson think you were unbeatable, everyone kept silent. And I hardly had to carry you; you were trying to get on my shoulders by then.”

“You do have nice shoulders,” hummed Klaus, turning his face just enough to press a slight kiss to the shoulder he was resting against.

“So you’ve said,” replied Dave. His hand moved down from his hair to cup his cheek, his thumb running along his cheekbone. His head ducked down so that his lips could press a gentle kiss to the top of his head and Klaus let his eyes flutter closed, body melting next to Dave’s. “How are you feeling?”

A sigh fell from his lips and he shrugged half-heartedly. “Don’t know,” he murmured. “Trying not to think. Keep – keep doing that?”

Dave hummed his acknowledgement and once more lifted his hand to his hair to resume twirling the short strands around his fingers obediently, much to Klaus’ pleasure. “Think you might be able to get some sleep?”

Klaus shook his head in response. “Can’t sleep,” he sighed. He could never sleep and he knew it would be no different now, even if his body felt so heavy and yet hollow at the same time. It felt as if air was whistling through the empty marrow of his bones and his head felt stuffed full of smog. He was trying not to think about anything, really, instead making an attempt at just relaxing with Dave and pretending as if the long list of his problems didn’t exist whatsoever.

“Then we can just relax here,” he said, and Klaus hummed his agreement. He melted into Dave, hiding his face in the crook of his neck. Blessedly, there was no rumbling heartbeat that echoed from him that might drill into Klaus’ skull, and though Klaus would never say he was glad Dave was dead, he was grateful for that one fact. He wasn’t sure how he would manage to leech some comfort from him if he did.

The heartbeats wandering around the Academy on different floors and in different rooms were bad enough.

“I don’t know how you don’t hate me,” said Klaus, and Dave’s hand ran down his arm.

“What do you mean?”

Klaus scoffed lightly, tipping his head back against Dave’s shoulder just enough to look up at his face. “You know what I mean,” he drawls. “And, like, not that I could even blame you or anything, but you have to admit that this situation is kind of – very much so – fucked up. All kinds of fucked up.”

Dave snorted. His hand glided from his arm up his shoulder, resting on top of it, fingertips brushing his jaw. “I never said it wasn’t fucked up, doll. I said I didn’t hate you. You’re trying your best in a pretty fucked up situation.”

“Well, glad we’re on the same page about something,” he uttered, dropping his head back against his neck. Dave’s fingers searched up his cheek until they came to the top of his head, beginning to gently push through his hair, massaging along his scalp.

“Do I make a hot zombie?” He asked after a beat of silence, and Dave’s chest bounced with a small laugh. He didn’t answer, though; simply kept playing with his hair, and then he began to hum. Klaus latched onto the sound, one he recognised to be a tune from their days in ‘Nam, a song they and the others in their squad would sing while doing work to try and keep the morale up. It helped to ease some tension out of his body, helped him focus on that rather than the sound of Luther’s irritatingly loud heartbeat rumbling from the kitchen.

He didn’t doze off at all, body evading sleep as it had been ever since his death, but the rest was nice. To let go of his worries for a moment and simply be held by Dave was nice. He was almost tempted to pick up his old hobby of knitting in this moment. He tried not to think of the situation, really, but he knew inevitably he would have to face it. He would not be able to run from it forever, and if Five came up to him and said that there was no cure and never would be, he would have to accept his life as it was. And what then?

So long as the Commission continued to attack them then he would have a supply of food that he wouldn’t have to feel bad about, nor would he have to put anyone good or innocent in harm’s way. Perhaps, eventually, he might even be able to figure out the ins and outs of this situation, too. Maybe he could even see it in a better light, but he would have to face that hunger head-on and try to either control it or push through it even longer. He would need Five’s help again, no doubt, he’d need to be locked back in that cage again. Maybe he’d need even more restraints, if only to stop him from hurting himself.

He hated feeling like a lab rat. Had Reginald been here, only god might know what kind of tests and experiments his father might put him through, and though he would hate to admit it, he would probably get some results. Reginald had always had a deeper understanding of their powers than themselves. Klaus wondered if he had even suspected something like this could ever happen. He can only imagine what kind of weapon his father would have tried to turn him into if he had been around.

It scared him to think about himself, but he wasn’t sure what he would end up doing if he was stuck like this forever. He would have to do something, and he would prefer if that wasn’t locking himself up in a cage until he died, if he could die. Maybe he would just rot mindlessly for decades, forgotten in the basement of the Academy, and eventually everyone else would pass away and he would be left there forever, trapped and mindless.

A shiver ran down his spine at the thought. Expelling a tense sigh, he leaned further against Dave, and as if sensing his tension, Dave wrapped an arm tighter around him and gently squeezed him in an embrace against his chest.

“You’ll be okay,” Dave murmured, resting his chin atop Klaus’ head. “And I’ll be here for you, doll.”

Klaus hummed sceptically, cracking his eyes open to stare at the wall opposite him; at the fairy lights strung up over the wall, the posters pressed up on it. He felt Dave run a hand up and down his arm, his touch soft and comforting. He found it hard to believe that things would turn up quickly, that anything could end up okay.

Closing his eyes, Klaus wrapped his arms around Dave and didn’t reply. Dave’s lips ghosted over the top of his head in a gentle kiss, and he thought back to the first kiss they shared back in Vietnam, and he wished he had never left.

“Maybe I could summon Dad,” he finally said, opening his eyes once more. His gaze bounced between Dave and Ben in his room, looking for their reactions, though mainly Ben’s considering his brother understood Reginald more than Dave could.

“Would you want that?” Asked Ben, raising an eyebrow. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Shrugging, Klaus said, “I don’t know. I mean, anything to do with Dad is decidedly a bad idea, but I don’t know. The bastard was smart. He knew stuff about our powers before we had even shown them, and he was always rambling about untapped potential. _And_ he just knew how to off himself just before Five came back, just before the apocalypse. He probably knows something, right?”

Frowning, Ben glanced aside, lips pursed in thought. “Maybe,” he murmured, shifting on the spot. “I’m not sure if he would know much about, uh. You know.”

Snorting softly, Klaus bobbed his head. “Maybe not, but he did make Pogo, right? And he made Luther like that. If he had ideas I could come back from the dead, he would have considered every variable and every possibility, especially if it could benefit him.”

“You think you being like this would benefit your Dad?” Asked Dave, confused and curious. Klaus and Ben exchanged a look.

“Well, it might sate his sadistic need to experiment on things and test the limits of humanity,” Klaus drawled, looking at his nails. “I could have been useful on missions, maybe. Actually be good for fighting, or something. Or maybe he would have just locked me up in a cage in his office like a little pet.” Klaus hummed at that, high-pitched and playing off his unease at such an idea. Dave looked away, face pinched.

“It’s up to you, Klaus,” said Ben. “If you think you could summon him and that it would be a good thing to do-“ Klaus gave him a look and so Ben sighed, clarifying, “not a good thing, but a not-so-bad thing. We’re low on options here.”

Sighing, Klaus nods. “Worse comes to worst, I can just tell him to fuck off and give him a shove in the right direction, right?”

“Right,” said Ben, nodding along with him. Very reluctantly, Klaus began to untangle himself from Dave. His lover offered a smile, squeezing his hand as Klaus slid onto his feet, standing upright off the bed, and Klaus returned the smile with confidence he didn’t feel. Then, exhaling slowly, he lowered himself onto the floor, crossing his legs as he went down, and he closed his eyes.

He reached for that place deep within himself, that cold, dark well of power residing in his bones like an endless void falling into nothingness. A frigid chill swept over him like a breeze, worse than the cold he had been feeling recently, and he flexed his fingers from where they rested over his knees. This part was familiar to him; he had done it a hundred times before, he could do it again.

Finding specific ghosts was never particularly difficult for him; ghosts were eager to find him, so if he offered them his hand then they would latch desperately onto it as soon as they could. It was typically the dismissing of said ghosts that once had been the hard part, though he had since gotten somewhat good at being able to shake them away and move them on, or at least to somewhere else. He truly had no idea what became of ghosts once he had sent them on their way, and he didn’t really care that much.

However, as he began his search for Reginald, it proved harder than he had expected, though it didn’t necessarily surprise him; the old bastard was stubborn in life and as stubborn as ever in death. Of course he would never make things easier for Klaus, even if he would then complain about Klaus taking long to be able to conjure him. Reginald had never really made much sense.

He tried following traces of his presence that lingered around him within the Academy, hints of him stuck in the walls, lingering in the corridor, shadows of his old presence that ghosts always leave after their death. He tried to follow them through to the other side, tried to link them to Reginald’s ghost and tug him forth, but the connection was never made.

Pushing forwards a little harder, Klaus dipped a little lower into the well, reaching himself further into the other side to try and be able to reach further. He could hear whispers breathed on the shells of his ears from other nearby ghosts, feel a breeze as their hands reached out to him and only missed them by a hair. He could feel their presence in the way the tension in the atmosphere doubled, then tripled, and kept multiplying as they unfurled like a wave on the sea, hundreds and then thousands of them all around, trying to cling onto him and anchor themselves. Klaus ignored them all in favour of shoving through them and looking for his father.

There – a sliver of his presence. He whipped around for it and began to chase it, clawing it like a rope leading its way to him. The presence got stronger, closer, and he could almost see his face as it neared him from the shadows. He reached out, fingers ghosting over him, and-

Hands shook his shoulders. His eyes snapped open to see Ben in front of him, still corporeal, shaking him out of his daze. “Klaus, you need to move!” He said, urgency lacing his tone and his expression. He tugged Klaus upwards, forcing him onto his feet until Klaus swatted his hands away from him.

“What? What is-“

Then he heard it. The deafening roar of heartbeats – dozens of heartbeats, surrounding him, surrounding the Academy and flooding inside. Then, underneath all of that, the footsteps. Klaus shared a look with Klaus and Dave and then danced out of sight of his door, pressing himself against the wall beside it.

“Know what’s going on?” He asked. He could hear them now, first, flooding in through the courtyard – did they jump the wall? And who even were they?

“I’ve not checked yet, but there’s more coming – a lot more.”

Gritting his teeth together, Klaus tried, for once, to listen to the heartbeats to try and track them and distinguish how many there were. The sound drilled into his skull and it was like the screaming of the ghosts all over again; he had to learn how to overlook it and push through it.

“Some coming through the fire escape in Five’s room,” Ben reported, sticking his head out of the doorway, now incorporeal and invisible. Sure enough, heartbeats flooded the second floor and began to run past his doorway, and Klaus caught the sight of armoured gunmen, the same who had attacked them days ago; the Commission.

“Fucksake, they never give up, huh?” He muttered low beneath his breath, and he waited until they had all gone past his bedroom before daring to relax slightly. “Let’s get this show on the road then. You might need to make a little appearance if it goes south, alright?”

“Sure,” Ben said, one hand ghosting over his stomach before his expression hardened and he nodded. “Come on, let’s get them.”

Klaus flashed a grin, nudging his brother, and then he turned to Dave, who had stood upright and looked just about ready to fight, though he had no means of doing so physically and had no gun. And, truly, Klaus wasn’t sure if he wanted him there if Ben had to bring out The Horror, or if he himself had to fight and indulged in the bloodlust following him recently.

“I’ll be but a minute, my dear,” he said, squeezing his shoulder. Dave caught his wrist as he turned to go, expression on his face worried.

“Klaus-“

“I’ll be okay. You know I will,” he assured. Dave offered a small smile.

“I know, but be safe, okay? If you need my help…”

“I’ll holler if I do,” Klaus promised, and he ducked forwards to press a kiss to his cheek before turning and ducking out of the doorway. They were all downstairs, some on the bottom of the stairs, congregating there and surrounding all of his siblings. Klaus grimaced, and then his eyes fell onto two faces. He and Ben shared incredulous looks.

“What the fuck,” he muttered quietly, still unseen by the Commission goons. “I thought they were dead.”

“Well, I didn’t kill them, but they definitely shouldn’t be standing,” Ben replied, ducking low down by the bannister despite being invisible.

“Fucking time travellers,” Klaus sighed, shaking his head and moving his gaze from Hazel and Cha-Cha, looking remarkably healthy for people who had been beaten up by eldritch monsters only a few days ago, and to his siblings. They were surrounded, guns pointed at them all, looking ready to fight, and the chandelier overhead was swaying as Vanya struggled to retain a tight grip on her powers. Five was in front of them all, one hand up, the other holding one of Diego’s knives as he regarded Hazel and Cha-Cha.

“The apocalypse is over,” he declared. “There’s nothing any of you can do about it.”

“It’s not quite over yet,” said Cha-Cha. “It’s going to happen, Five, and you can’t stop it no matter how hard you try. You could have survived all of this if you just did your contract.”

“Fuck the contract,” snorted his brother, rolling his eyes, fingers twitching on the grip of his knife.

“The Handler wants to talk to you. You can make this real easy for yourself, or you can make it real quick.” At this, she gave a pointed flick of her gun in his direction. Five didn’t flinch.

Sighing, Klaus stood up, ignored Ben trying to tell him to come up with a plan first – he had a plan, it was just being made as he went along – and began to stroll down the stairs with loud footsteps.

“Oh, look at you two,” he called. Sharply, dozens of guns pointed right at them, some with red lazer dots bouncing around his body. Hazel and Cha-Cha turned to look at him too, and he grinned when he saw them falter. He whistled, shaking his head. “Looking real good after our little meeting, huh? Time travellers, I guess. Now, here’s what’s actually going to happen; you’re going to round up your goons and you’re going to go back where you came from.”

He watched, curious, as the circle of Commission guards parted to allow Cha-Cha to approach him slowly (much to his siblings’ dismay, if their yells were anything to go by). He wiggled his fingers in a wave to them. “Or, you know, me and my brother will kick your ass again, and-“

He never managed to finish his sentence. In one swift movement, Cha-Cha lifted her gun, pointed it right between his eyes, and pulled the trigger.

There was a resounding scream from his siblings, followed quickly by the thud of his body hitting the stairs, folded like a deck of cards. And Klaus…

Klaus blinked, startled, and lifted a hand to the cold blood trickling from the wound in his head, and stared at his bloody fingertips. Then he looked back up at Cha-Cha, staring at him with wide eyes as he pushed himself off the stairs, swaying slightly, and then upright onto his feet.

Rolling his shoulder back and wiping blood from his forehead before it had the chance to trickle into his eye, Klaus said, “second option it is, then.”

Chaos exploded. His siblings burst into action, attacking the Commission goons surrounding them while their attention was fixated on Klaus in shock and horror, and Klaus curled his hands into fists and Ben stepped into the realm of the living. His chest opened up from it uncurled The Horror, shining pale blue in the dim light, and they began to attack the nearest Commission members going for Klaus.

Klaus himself turned his attention to Cha-Cha. As she shook herself of her shock, Klaus began to dodge her new rapid-fire gunshots, throwing himself to the side and against the bannister of the staircase they were still on. He slid down, able to fit himself in the gap on the bannister, and dropped himself the short way to the floor from the stairs, and ducked to the nearest marble pillar for cover as bullets began to embed themselves in it.

Steadying his breathing and ensuring Ben would remain corporeal, Klaus stretched himself a little further, peered around the marble pillar and thrust his hands out, shoving back Cha-Cha with a wave of telekinesis. He did it again, forcing the gun from Cha-Cha’s hand, though she just immediately pulled a pistol from her waistband much to his dismay.

He ducked back for cover, waiting until they had to pause to reload their guns and he wouldn’t risk another bullet through his body, even if it might not matter much, apparently. Then he rounded again, jumping from his cover, and dashed to a nearest mangled Commission member, courtesy of Ben’s handiwork, and stole their gun. As he turned it on Cha-Cha, she ducked for cover and he scowled.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted another guard pointing a gun in his direction, and so he turned his attention to the more immediate threats around him.

There were a lot of Commission members. Ben was quick in taking care of a lot of them, but he could only control The Horror for so long, even in this ghostly form, before he had to force them away or else they might act out on their own and put Klaus and their siblings in danger. At least he made a sizeable dent in their forces.

Five was swift in his execution of the guards, too; teleporting all over the place, hardly staying still for more than a second. He was impossible to track, taking people out all over the place, sometimes with a gun and sometimes with a knife. Luther was taking people out with brute force, throwing them all over the place and trying to go for Hazel, and Diego was throwing knives and skidding to pick them back up or managing to disarm opponents in close combat. Allison, still refusing to give into her powers, was making up for it by going for the stragglers that could potentially end up sneaking up on them later, and Vanya was staying mostly to the side, safe, but every so often a Commission member would get too close to her and then suddenly be thrown across the room.

There still was too many people. And, according to Ben, who had taken to overlooking them and ensuring none managed to hide or sneak up on anyone, there were more coming.

Gritting his teeth, Klaus’ steady hands put a bullet in the weak spot of one member’s armour, and then he whipped around to do the same to an approaching member with precise aim and skill cultivated in Vietnam. When he turned to do the same to a third, however, the gun failed him; devoid of any more ammunition.

With a scowl, he threw the gun aside and ducked once more for cover.

“Cha-Cha’s on you,” said Ben, crouching beside him. “She seems deadest on trying to kill you, despite. You know.”

With a snort, Klaus flexed his fingers, readying himself. Ben didn’t need Klaus to voice his plan; he kept watch and then, when Cha-Cha was just around the corner of his hiding space, he alerted Klaus.

He sprung forwards, all but tackling Cha-Cha. He wrestled to pull the pistol from his grip, pointing it up at the ceiling as a shot went off from it, and then, with the aid of a little telekinesis, he threw the gun aside. Cha-Cha didn’t miss a beat; she threw a punch, landing it across his face, and then threw another one. Klaus lifted his arms as a shield to cover his face, stepping backwards as she advanced and grimacing. Close combat had never been his strong point, but evidently it was for her. It only took Klaus a few seconds to find himself pinned to the floor, one arm twisted beneath his back while she pinned his legs down and continued to strike him.

The blows hurt, but it was almost a distant pain, and little more than a bearable ache. Each time she forced his head down with a punch, he lifted it back up, and he thrashed against her grip, but she had a strong, unrelenting grip on him, and his arm beneath him was utterly trapped and he couldn’t tug it free.

He did, however, manage to wrangle his other hand out of her grip, and return a punch across her face. She hardly swayed, and didn’t even falter in her own attack; she struggled with him to get his free hand under control again.

Then, Klaus noticed a thin trickle of blood coming from her nose, courtesy of his punch, and his eyes fixated on it like a damn dog with a bone being waved in his face. Suddenly her heartbeat was a hundred times stronger than all of the ones around him, and he was entranced by it all. And all of a sudden, he got his arm free from beneath him, and he threw her off of him with a sudden burst of strength that shouldn’t belong to him. She seemed shocked by this, thrown off balance, and Klaus’ fingers encircled her wrists in a breaking grip, and, well, she was going to die anyway. Klaus’ teeth closed around her throat.

No thrashing could dislodge him from her in his bloodlust, body hurrying to try and sate this endless hunger.

Then a hand curled into his shirt, and with his surprise he was yanked off. Five’s voice snapped, “get your brain back in your skull, idiot. We’re going.”

Klaus stumbled to keep up as Five tugged him away from Cha-Cha’s corpse and towards the stairs leading to the basement, along with the rest of their siblings, still trying to fight off the following Commission members. If Klaus had a gun, he might be able to help. Instead, he simply wiped blood from his mouth onto the back of his hands and couldn’t stop himself from licking it off.

“Where – where are we going?” He asked, stumbling downstairs into the basement. Luther came in last, slamming the door behind them shut and holding it closed with his body. Diego and Allison hurried to haul nearby furniture to put it in front and Luther danced out of the way of bullets tearing through the wall around him. “We’re just trapped in here,” he declared, looking around. Vanya didn’t look too happy to be here, and nor was he, when he looked at her cage just a few paces away.

“I have an idea,” said Five. “Everyone, come here.”

A vicious crack from the door made them all flinch and grimace and then run to their brother. “Okay, hold on to each other-“

“What’s happening?” Allison asked, reaching to take Luther’s hand in one and Vanya’s in the other. Five took hold of one of Klaus’ and Diego took hold of the other one, then joined with Luther, and Ben put his hand on Klaus’ shoulder.

“The Commission is going to keep sending people our way and there are too many just up there, and probably more coming.” His sentences was punctuated with a bullet tearing through the wall and embedding into another. Everyone ducked slightly. “I’m going to transport us elsewhere, or…”

“Or what?” Klaus asked. His words tasted like blood.

Pressing his lips, Five said. “Or I’m going to try and time travel. I could put us back to the beginning of this week, it could give us some more time. Or just – before now. Sometime else, throw the Commission off a bit.”

“Alright,” said Luther, nodding. “Okay, let’s-“ Another bullet, whizzing by, “let’s do it now.”

Everyone readily nodded their agreement, and whether or not they understood the unsaid possibilities of Five trying to put them all back through time despite doing it last time alone and getting stuck for decades, no one said anything in protest. The door was being pounded open. Either they got stuck in another time period, or they got mowed down by guns then and there.

As Five tensed and strained, a blue light began to devour them, and a strong wind kicked up around them. Klaus held tighter onto his brothers either side of him. The door opened a crack. Five began to yell, and –

Everything –

Changed –

His body felt stretched thin, paper thin, pulled in all directions-

It went on for eternity. He was sure his atoms were being pulled apart one by one-

He hit a ground from a thousand foot drop, his body smashed back together.

When he could find his eyelids again, he pried them open, and stared up at the sight of Academy ruins towering over him, and flames licking the world all around him. There was nothing but destruction surrounding him as if the world had been set ablaze and turned into its own graveyard.

Five sat up, pale face dusted in ash, utter horror etched into his face as he looked at the carnage around him. One he was familiar with, Klaus realised, before he passed out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise x2! Also round 2 for apocalypse time.  
> As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!


	10. Chapter 10

Klaus woke up with a splitting headache.

Groaning and heaving himself upright, something underneath him crunched and shifting, like stones skittering loose as he moved. He cracked his eyes open, narrowing them against the glare of a bright sun bearing down onto him. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the light, allowing them to adjust and show him the sight laid out in front of him.

“Oh,” he breathed, dropping his hand to his side.

“A bit of an understatement,” commented Ben, crouching by his side. Klaus was relieved to see him there, and then he raised an eyebrow and looked around. He didn’t need to ask the question for Ben to get it; “Dave didn’t come through with us, but you could probably summon him to you, I guess.”

Pursing his lips and nodding, he turned his attention to their other siblings. Everyone was sitting upright, looking in various stages of confusion, distress and fatigue. Five looked as if a gentle breeze might blow him over, swaying slightly as he looked around, and Diego had managed to get up onto his feet already, looking around the endless expanse of destruction with wide eyes.

“Five,” said Diego, whirling on their brother. “W-what the hell is this?”

Looking suddenly as old as he truly was, Five sighed and said, “the apocalypse.”

“What do you mean? Why are we here, Five?” Demanded Luther, pushing himself up onto his feet. After swaying for a moment and swinging his gaze between Allison and Five, he ended up going towards their brother instead. Five remained sitting on the ground.

“I overestimated my abilities. I couldn’t control where we landed, and the flow of time took us here,” said their brother, looking morose, before he placed his hands on his knees and began to push himself upright. He pitched to the side and Diego reached out quickly, grabbing his arm and balancing him until he could stand by himself, and Five didn’t even shove him away. He wiped the palms of his hands on his legs and looked around, lips pressed together in a thin line. “There’s a chance my influence in this place and time made me more attached to it,” he added as an afterthought, finally turning his gaze to everyone else.

“Well, we can’t just stay here, right?” Said Luther, gesturing vaguely with his hands as if to gesture around the place. “We have to go back-“

“I know,” Five interrupted him, holding up a hand to keep him quiet. “I know we do, but right now… I can’t. Not so quickly.”

“You out of juice?” Diego retorted, raising his eyebrows, and Five shot him a short glare.

“It took a lot out of me. I won’t be able to time travel with all of us again so soon.”

“But you will be able to eventually, right?”

Five paused. “Of course. Now then, come on. I think it’s best that we start finding a place to set up camp so we can rest, and we’ll need to try and find food for all of us.” His jaw ticked at that, something dark and heavy in the shadows of his eyes. “If this is the original timeline that I came into, then I know where we can find some.”

“How long will we have to stay here?” Asked Allison, eyebrows creasing with worry. “We can’t survive out here,” she said, gesturing to the wasteland around them.

“We can,” Five replied, a little defensively. “I did. And I don’t know. It will take me… a while to recover my abilities enough to transport all of us, and I’ll have to spend time making sure I can travel back with all of us; it should be easier than before, if you’re wondering. I know the equations I used to get back, but I’ll have to change them to account for everyone.”

Everyone shared a look, eyebrows raised or furrowed, uncertain, but then Allison nodded. “Alright. It’s not like we can do anything else anyway. We should try and set up camp somewhere like Five said – Five is most prepared for this situation. We should listen to him.”

Swayed by Allison, Luther nodded his head in agreement. “Right. Where should we go, then?”

Five pursed his lips, thoughtful, scanning the ruins of the buildings around them. Then he jerked his head in a gesture for them to follow him, and he began to walk. He was still shaky on his legs, walking a bit slower and stumbling over loose rocks and debris, breathing a little heavier, but he lead them all on until they approached where Klaus had the feeling he had set up his camp the first time around in the apocalypse; a circular room with mostly-intact walls tall enough to keep the wind out, with the floor of a second story half-intact about them that offered some shade from the sweltering heat of the sun.

“It’s good shelter,” he said. “Probably the best you’ll get here. There are places nearby where we can find food, clothes, and supplies.”

Evidently, everyone was less than pleased with their campsite composed of crumbling walls fallen debris, still all hot with the lingering heat of flames, but Klaus, with his time on the streets, found that it couldn’t be any worse than sleeping in an alleyway. Not that he’d likely be sleeping any time soon.

Five sat down on a piece of rubble, exhaling heavily and hanging his head slightly. After a beat, Klaus took a few hesitant steps forwards and asked, “you okay there?”

Five scrubbed his hands down his face before lifting his head to meet his gaze. “The time travel took a lot out of me,” he repeated from earlier, and he seemed to brace himself before pushing himself up onto his feet. “We should start gathering supplies right away before it gets dark. We’ll need to gather wood to make a fire, and it will be good to find some tarps to put up around the place-“

“You stay here,” said Klaus. “You need to rest. We can go find stuff, you should sit down.”

Five glared at him. “You don’t know where anything is,” he stated. “I do. I’m fine.”

“He’s right,” said Diego, taking a few steps closer. “Just tell us where to go and we’ll go get it and bring it back, but you should rest. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

Huffing, Five looked between them all as if he was cornered. He folded his arms over his chest, grit his teeth, and then sighed. “Fine,” he grit out, “you can some food in the old grocery store three streets down; there should be enough for all of us for a few days. Longer if we ration it out. The buildings in this street have a lot of supplies spread out – hence why I chose to stay here the first time. You can just look through them and you should be able to find some things – just take everything you see.”

“Alright, great,” said Klaus, clapping his hands together. “Relax, we’ve got it.”

Five did not look as if he had a lot of confidence in them, but nonetheless he slunk backwards to the rock he had been sitting on earlier and sat back down.

“Allison and I will go to the grocery store,” said Luther, with a lingering gaze on Klaus, and then, though Allison lingered a moment with a conflicted expression, they both walked out of their new campsite. Klaus sighed slightly but shrugged it off.

As he turned to walk out, planning to search the street for anything Five might dub useful, Diego set a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll come with you,” he said, and Klaus glanced back at Vanya, though she seemed content to sit by Five, looking as if she was waiting for them to leave before she spoke up. He looked back to Diego and nodded, and together they walked out.

“This is crazy,” Diego commented, kicking a rock across the road. Klaus gave him a look.

“Bit of an understatement there,” he said, and Diego snorted, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his pants. They wandered in silence, crossing the street and peering around at the ruined buildings surrounding them, trying to catch sight of anything other than debris and rocks and ash. Then Diego spoke up again.

“What – what even happened back there, bro?” He asked, voice hushed. Klaus raised an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

Diego pressed his lips together, toying with his bottom one between his teeth for a moment. Then he said, “you – you got shot, Klaus. And just got right back up.”

A sigh fell from his lips heavily and he shrugged; kicked a rock beneath his foot and listened to it skitter across the street. “Can’t kill what’s already dead, I guess,” he simply said, watching Diego’s expression. His brother’s eyebrows furrowed in thought and then he nodded to a building, leading the way through an empty doorway.

“The wound’s gone now,” he added absentmindedly, and Klaus lifted his hand up to touch his forehead. There was still blood smeared over it, he realised, and he probably looked ghastly, but sure enough there was no actual wound, and he thought back to Five commenting on his wounds healing up after he ate. Though he hadn’t gotten much of Cha-Cha, he guessed that it must have been enough to fix him up, which was good. It wouldn’t be so fun having to deal with a gunshot wound between his eyes that wouldn’t heal on its own otherwise.

Diego tugged out a half-torn blue tarp from where it was trapped underneath a rock. One side of it was scorched. He folded it up and held it under his arm and they began walking again.

“How are you feeling about this?” Diego asked him, and Klaus stayed quiet for several moments.

He was, truthfully, trying not to think about the situation, because if he did he would be forced to acknowledge the harsh truths of what the next few days might bring for Klaus. Instead, he thought about everything but.

He would have expected the end of the world to have more ghosts, even with the barrier he manage to put between them and himself. There were ones he could see out of the corner of his eye that he managed to push away, all gory and moaning, but there wasn’t an influx like he would have expected. Then again, since he had died and become undead, the ghosts had shown nearly no interest in him whatsoever; he supposed there was no reason for them to now, though. They were attracted to life and energy, of which Klaus no longer had. It was a weight off his shoulders.

There was the obvious concern about the Commission following them here, but he would have to talk to Five about that. The Commission’s goal was to make sure the apocalypse went ahead, however, so perhaps in this timeline they would be left alone, if they were so lucky. Once more, he would have to see what Five thought about it.

He would have to go about conjuring Dave as soon as he was able to sit down, though at least it seemed they had nothing but time here. He would be able to do it soon.

“I think we should listen to Five here,” he finally settled on. “He obviously knows how best to survive here, and we have to wait for him to rest and do his equations thing before we can go anyway. Not much we can do about it.” He shrugged, playing it off as nonchalant, and then scrutinised a building and began to gravitate towards it. There was a half-burned blanket trapped under fallen debris, which had luckily kept it from burning completely, and Diego helped him pull it out from its trap before they kept going.

“I suppose so,” he agreed with a sigh. “I just hope we’re not stuck here for too long.”

He wasn’t saying what he wanted to, and Klaus knew it. Diego knew it. They were stalling, attempting to stall the inevitable.

“How long… how long did it take for Five to move you to Vanya’s cage?”

Klaus pursed his lips. So they were going to confront the situation, then, rather than following typical Hargreeves’ behaviour and stubbornly ignore obvious future problems.

“Four days,” he said. “Took four days without eating for things to get to that point.”

“Right,” said Diego, nodding his head. “You think Five will have us back in four days?”

Klaus shared a look with Ben. “Maybe,” he lied. Diego didn’t look any more hopeful than he felt.

“And… if not?”

“I don’t know!” He snapped, and then he sighed, running a hand down his face. “Sorry. I don’t know, Diego. I’m trying not to think about that.”

Diego bobbed his head in a nod, looking away. “I know, I’m sorry,” he replied, and he opened his mouth to continue, but ended up just closing it again.

Narrowing his eyes, Klaus scrutinised Diego. “Are you scared?” He asked. “Scared of me?”

Diego gave him a wide-eyed look at the accusation. “Of course not,” he spluttered, heat rising to his cheeks with guilt. Klaus waved a hand to dismiss him as he kept spluttering.

“Not that I blame you, it’s fine. Smart that you are, honestly,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know what’ll happen. Think there’s a cage still standing around somewhere? Maybe you can lock me in a tower away like some damsel.”

Diego gave him a look that Klaus took to mean that he didn’t find that funny at all. Klaus shrugged innocently and decided to abruptly cut off his own train of thought on that topic. He would be fine for four days, although his willpower and control began to wither after three. Four was the last of his self-control, really. He knew that after then he wouldn’t be able to stop himself; he hadn’t been able to and the only reason he hadn’t attacked anyone was because he physically couldn’t, locked away as he had been. And here, there was nowhere to lock him up; only his siblings, with their warm blood and thundering hearts, and him with his bloodlust.

He and Diego did a lap of the street, scouring the buildings in search of any and everything, and they returned to Vanya and Five with their arms full of tarps and blankets and odd trinkets found around the place – a couple of cans of food, a bottle, a bucket. They laid out their findings in a corner and pretended not to notice the way Vanya fell quiet as they arrived back into camp, and then they simply sat down. It took longer for Allison and Luther to return; long enough Five ended up dozing off. Klaus thought that just went to show how tired he truly felt, if he was willing to take a nap in front of them.

They day went by uneventfully. Luther and Diego left to gather supplies for a fire, and they created it in the centre of their camp. With it they heated up their food to eat, and boiled water that Vanya and Allison ended up going out to find. They used the tarps to try and cover up the low holes in the wall to stop a draft from coming in, and the blankets were laid out on the floor to sleep on top of. The heat didn’t lessen in the night; there was no need to use them. They had five blankets; one less than they needed. Klaus went without. It wasn’t as if he would sleep anyway.

Instead, as night began to fall, Klaus perched on a broken wall, slightly elevated off the ground, and further from his siblings on the opposite side of the fire. He stared into its dazzling flames, blinding against the night sky, clearer than he’d ever seen before, and tried not to focus on the smell of food he once would have liked that now made him want to gag.

Five came close and settled beside him and stayed silent for several minutes. Klaus was nearly convinced he came to say nothing, had he not known Five better.

“We’re not going to be home in four days,” he stated.

“I guessed that,” muttered Klaus, watching a spark jump off the fire and die on a dusty floor.

“The only living things besides us here are the cockroaches and vultures and rats.”

“So I’ve upgraded from mindless mutt to a barn cat that hunts things now?” Klaus quipped, laughing dryly. “That won’t do much, Five.”

“I know. It’s all we’ve got.”

“I hope you’re including a cage, a tower or a big hole, none of which I can get out of.”

Five pursed his lips, scrutinising the fire in front of them. “I suppose it’s going to be necessary, huh?”

Klaus raised his eyebrows, giving him a look. “Obviously. We’ve had enough murder attempts in this family, let’s not have me add to it, huh?”

Five scoffed. “I’ve got an idea; we’ll figure it out tomorrow.” He slid up onto his feet, standing, and turned to look at him. “I’m working on getting us back as quickly as I can.”

Klaus bobbed his head in a nod, not looking as he turned and walked away again. He knew Five would try to get them back; he knew it wouldn’t be done quick enough.

Klaus closed his eyes, and called for Dave.

###

The sun rose and made the place glow as if it were still on fire. Klaus did not feel tired from the lack of sleep he received but rather the lack of successful progress he made in his attempts to find Dave; what usually came nearly naturally to him in calling forth spirits seemed to fail him now when he needed to.

Ben told him to relax; told him surely he would be able to conjure him soon, but time travel messed with the body and mind; he had never been able to conjure Ben in Vietnam. He’d simply have to try harder.

As his other siblings rationed out a breakfast to Five’s satisfaction, Five stood up in front of them all. He looked better than he did yesterday, more colour to his skin and life to his eyes, and he seemed almost happy as he said, “the Commission shouldn’t be a problem.”

Luther lifted his head, as curious as he always was whenever something seemed important. “How do you know that?” He asked.

“In this timeline, they’ve completed their goal,” he declared. “The apocalypse happened. They never intervened when I was here the first time around. I have little reason to believe they’d intervene now. They know none of you can do anything to get in their way or get their interest; they’ll believe I’ll have made us stuck here for another four decades. They don’t want me back with them; they have no reason to intervene. We should be fine here. I’ll plan to get us back to our original timeline as soon as I can. For now, our best course of action is to focus on survival here, and this could be a good place to practice Vanya’s powers in a safe, controlled place where, if she loses control of them, then there’s no harm.”

“That’s a good point,” said Allison, looking between all of them. “And when we do go back home then you’ll have more control by then. This is a good opportunity to practice safely while we can.”

Vanya, after a moment of pause, nodded her head, and Klaus thought he could almost see a smile ghosting her features. “I’m down,” she agreed, looking between Allison and Five. “I – I don’t know really know how to do it, but we can try. I know using my violin helped, but it’s not here, so…”

“We’ll figure it out,” said Five. “We’ve got time. I’m going to get a start on the equations for returning; maybe Allison could help you with that now, and Luther, you could go out and try and get more supplies. I don’t want to run out.”

Luther hesitated for a moment before he gave in, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that. I won’t be long.” He groaned as he rose to his feet, dusting ash off his clothes. Diego stood, stretching out.

“I’ll come with you,” he stated. “We can bring back more stuff. It’ll be quicker.”

Luther paused, eying Diego, and Klaus never thought he’d see the day where they would work together without throwing fists first, but then Luther nodded and the two of them left together.

Ben sat down beside Klaus with a sigh. Five used a rock to scratch equations into the walls surrounding them, and Vanya and Allison walked from camp.

Klaus closed his eyes and thought of Dave.

###

Dave quickly became his priority.

There was truly little else he could do.

He did not need to worry about the food they did. He boiled the murky water that was brought back every so often from where he didn’t want to know. He listened to Five mutter about equations to himself and scowl whenever he realised he was drinking water and not whiskey. Luther still refused to hardly so much as look at him, let alone talk or work with him, and Vanya and Allison weren’t much better, not eager to indulge him in conversations but beginning to warm up to him steadily now. They spoke to him, at least, even if they simply seemed to not want to be alone with him. Klaus was fine with that; he couldn’t blame them.

He stayed up at night, and he looked at the stars that Dave taught him in Vietnam, and sometimes he could swear he heard Dave’s voice reciting them, but when he turned in the voice’s direction there was nobody.

By night two, Luther’s heartbeat was giving him a headache, and as they sat down to eat their dinner, the smell made Klaus stumble out of their camp to throw up. That night, Allison and Vanya approached him.

“There’s nothing you can do about it, huh?” Allison had said, sad smile on her face. Klaus shook his head and said nothing.

Vanya squeezed his arm, and it felt a little nice, to not be thought of as such a monster by them again.

By night three, Klaus was beginning to reconsider his aversion to the rats and vultures Five mentioned. By night three, his siblings had taken to watching him with cautious, suspicious glances, though at least Five was more subtle with it.

He rode the waves of cramps out as best he could, on the debris he had claimed as his ‘bed’. He tried to trick his stomach into thinking it was full by drinking excess water, but it never worked.

Watching the fire at night was dizzying; hypnotising. It felt as if they jumped out of their place and reached out to him, for him, and that they might just devour him. He wasn’t sure he would mind it; he was incredibly cold.

Someone would put a hand on his shoulder and the flames were nothing but smouldering ashes in the daylight and the rush of blood in Diego’s veins sounded like the powerful waves of the ocean, and he didn’t mean to let his gaze linger on Diego’s arm and the veins hiding beneath his skin, really, but suddenly he couldn’t take his gaze away from it.

Somewhere distant, he wished Dave was there.

And then he was against a wall, and there was yelling. A hand was on his chest, and his feet weren’t touching the ground, and it was now Luther who was in front of him.

“What the hell was that?”

“He didn’t mean it,” Diego hissed. “And he didn’t even get me, Christ, put him down, Luther.”

“ _Seriously_? You can’t tell me-“

“Oh, cut it out, we’ve been over this by now.” A flash of blue, and the hand was being pulled away, and he was tumbling like a boneless heap to the floor and staying there. He had messed up, hadn’t he?

Hands tapped his cheeks and moved his head and he found his eyes and found his sight again, took control of it to look at Five. “You with us?” He asked, eyebrows raised, and Klaus scrambled one hand over the floor to try and sit up, nodding jerkily and trying to shove Five away. It had been too long, he knew it, and he was beginning to get dangerous no matter how much Diego said he believed in him, said he could control it.

“Klaus?” Asked Five, standing up with him, and Klaus waved his hands.

“I’m – I’m sorry,” he stammered, looking around at the world spinning around him. “I’m going on a walk.”

“Klaus?”

Turning on his heels, nearly losing his balance and falling, knees protesting after so little movement since arriving in the apocalypse entirely, Klaus stumbled towards the doorway that led to their little camp. “I’m going on a walk,” he repeated. “Don’t follow me – I’ll – I’ll be back later. I need to be alone, I’m-“

He ignored the heavy weight of their gazes on him, the rumble of their heartbeats that were strong enough to make his bones tremble, and he forced his stiff legs to carry him down the dark street, away from his siblings. He needed to clear his mind, needed to put some distance between himself and those damn heartbeats that echoed in the shell of his ears, needed just a moment to get control of himself, compose himself. Then he’d go back and demand Five dig a ten foot hole so he could hide in it and not get back out.

Or maybe he’d just keep walking until he couldn’t find his way back.

He really wished Dave was there with him, but he knew he would have no chance at focusing enough to conjure him now. Maybe, if he was lucky, Dave might find his way to him. But luck had never been on his side before.

He couldn’t hear the heartbeats anymore, though. The moon hung in the sky above his head. He wondered how far he had walked. Idly, he thought about that movie he and Ben had watched about a zombie apocalypse, and he had to laugh at it; laugh until his lungs were empty and he stumbled, and couldn’t catch himself.

He tumbled gracelessly to the ground, stones digging into him, and the grave of the city towered around him dizzyingly, ruined buildings leaning towards him, closing in on him, and his stomach twisted, and he pressed his wrist to his lips to keep them closed.

Then there were feet in front of him, and a steady heartbeat above him. He lifted his feverish gaze from the ground up, following a pair of heels upwards.

A woman loomed over him, dressed in all black, with a briefcase in one hand and a cigarette pipe in the other. Her platinum hair stood out against the void of space in the sky behind her, and her vibrant lips reminded a deep part of Klaus of his childhood and of home. They spread in a pearly grin, and her eyes glinted as she stared at him, and her expression was like that of a shark swimming around its prey.

Klaus clamped down on the pain in his stomach and the burning fire of hunger in his guts, and let his head fall back down to the floor in front of her feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm,,, unsatisfied with this chapter rip so please let me know what y'all thought


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: animal death, animal eating, gore, blood, autocannibalism, violence, dehumanisation, vague nudity, general creepy behaviour as per The Handler. We're ending on a bang lads

Stones crunched under the woman’s feet as she crouched down in front of him, skirt ghosting the floor, resting her arms on her knees. She cocked her head to the side, watching with curiosity as he grit his teeth together and made an attempt to push himself upright and away from her.

“You know,” she said, tapping ash from her cigarette to join the coating of it on the ground. “The first time around with this little doozy, we were all watching to see if you’d spring back up and be there with little Number Five; we were quite disappointed to see that you didn’t. But I must say, I think I much prefer this.”

The words didn’t quite sink into him, mind a little too gone to really to process them, or else he might have made the obvious connection between Five and the briefcase. He might have been able to suspect that she knew that too.

“Quite a number you did on our people, too. So fascinating… just look at you.” She reached a hand out, cupping his cheek, and the touch made Klaus startle. He reached up, shoving her hands off him and scrambled backwards. He blinked furiously, felt stones dig into the palms of his hands, and focused on the grounding feeling.

“Who are you?” He asked, voice rough, eyes narrowed. The woman’s smile didn’t falter.

“Oh, don’t worry about who I am,” she dismissed. “But you could consider me a… friend.”

Klaus scrutinised her and she held his gaze for several long minutes. Then she glanced over his head, pursed her lips and held her cigarette between them. She reached out, grabbed his arms and tugged him upright onto his feet, and turned him around to face the direction he came in.

“Now, you go on back to your little family, and I’ll see you later.” She patted his shoulder, grinned like a shark, and stepped backwards. Klaus stared at the street ahead of him that seemed to unfurl and stretch out in front of his eyes, going on for eternity. He shook himself and turned around.

He was alone.

The woman was gone and he wasn’t entirely sure she had ever been there in the first place.

Klaus felt suddenly very lost, mind reeling with confusion as he tried to determine whether or not that woman had ever existed and where she had gone and what she had said. Eventually, he gave up trying, and instead he just stood there, unsure of what else to do, as the world breathed around him and the hunger in his stomach deepened.

The sun was beginning to peer over the edge of the horizon when he was finally not alone again.

“Hey, Klaus,” said a voice, cautious and gentle, and Klaus blinked his sight back under his control and looked at Allison in front of him. “We’ve been looking for you for a while. You okay? You said you’d come back to camp, Klaus. It’s been a while.”

Klaus looked up at the sky, and the sun resting on Allison’s shoulders that burned into his eyes until everything was white and golden and blinding. A hand touched his elbow and he recognised the person in front of him, he thought, so he didn’t lunge forwards though his hunger demanded he do. Instead, he let the person urge him back down the street, because there wasn’t much else he could do.

“Yeah,” sighed someone, and suddenly he was surrounded and standing in a circle of walls. Brown eyes, and their wrist was in his grip, though they didn’t seem to mind, even if he kept gripping tighter and tighter before he realised he was. Not that he could make himself loosen it.

A sigh, and Klaus blinked, and there was talking, and heartbeats, and Klaus blinked. He needed to do something – needed to push himself back into his skeleton and control it.

An argument, maybe. A half-hearted one, filled with guilty glances his way, and then they were walking; Five was tugging him along by his wrist Klaus was still holding, back out onto the dusty, dazzling streets.

Then there were walls around him, and Klaus turned his head to look at Five, who was looking at him. He scrutinised the walls around him; a small room, bigger than the mausoleum, with no ceiling, but the walls were high and intact. He wouldn’t be able to reach the top of them even if he stood on the tips of his toes and stretched his arms out above his head.

“Sorry,” he muttered, finding his tongue in his mouth and letting go of Five’s bruised wrist. His brother shrugged it off, face unwavering.

“Not your fault,” he said. “But I think we need to take precautions now,” he added, almost hesitantly, looking for his reaction. Klaus nodded his agreement and eyed the walls. When his eyes moved it felt as if they never stopped. The world was dizzying.

“Yeah,” he said, and his tongue ran out over his lips and he swallowed. “You should. How?”

Five jerked his head to the doorway they came in. “Luther’s gonna block it off,” he stated. “You shouldn’t be able to get out. You’re about a twenty minute walk from the camp. That okay?”

Klaus waved a hand and took a few steps away. “’s fine. Good.”

Five watched him as he sat down on a piece of rubble, lips pressed together in a tight line. Behind him, the rest of their siblings hovered, looking conflicted. Maybe even worried. But their faces were blurry and unimportant to him.

Five came close, crouching beside him ( _so close so close he could smell copper rushing beneath his skin_ ) and asked, his voice hushed, “I can catch vultures. I’ve done it before. Would they help?”

Klaus cocked his head lazily to the side, eying him from the corner of his eyes. “Doesn’t matter if you ask, if you throw it in here I’ll eat it.”

Five pursed his lips. “I’m asking for your consent,” he stated. “I’m not going to make you do that if you don’t want to but can’t control yourself.”

“Huh,” mused Klaus. The thought was nice, he supposed. Respectful. He pondered it for a moment. It was a disturbing idea, of course, but he narrowed it down to the decision of: did he wanted to suspend himself in this confused, dizzying state with moments of coherency, or did he want to be wiped away and out of control?

“Do it,” he finally said, nodding his head.

“You sure?”

“Do it,” he repeated. “I’m sure.”

Five stood up, nodding. “Alright. I’m going to get us home soon, Klaus. Hang in there.”

Klaus smiled emptily, gaze tracking Five as he left the walls around him, ushering their other siblings out, and he watched as Luther began to fill in the doorway with rubble. Before he closed it off completely, Klaus caught his gaze. Perhaps he saw some guilt, or some worry there, he couldn’t be sure, and then it was closed off and he was locked in and more things were being moved in front of the doorway on the other side, an extra precaution.

With a flash of blue, Five appeared on the top of the wall nearby him. “Diego’s going to stay here,” he said. Klaus rolled his head back to meet his gaze. Five was helping pull Diego up onto the wall so that he could sit up on it, leaning against a higher part of the wall. “I won’t take long to get us back. I promise.”

Lying, Klaus said, “I know.”

Five lingered, and then he was gone, and only Diego remained. He might have said something, but Klaus closed his eyes and didn’t listen.

It wasn’t hard to let himself slip away. It was harder to stop it from happening, really, so he just let it. He grit his teeth through the cramps in his stomach until he was too gone to feel them, and then the world simply spun around him, or he spun around it, maybe, and there was nothing but dust and debris and heartbeats always out of reach.

One night, the heartbeat left its perch on the wall, gone far enough away he could no longer hear it. He was alone, and nothing existed in the moments he was alone; not himself, not anything else, not the world. And then there was a heartbeat again, and he existed again, and the world continued to exist.

Red lips and platinum hair, she set something down on the wall and then sat next to it, legs dangling over the edge, one crossed over the other. She made a flame jump to life and lit something between her lips and exhaled smoke into the night sky, and she grinned when he sat upright, moving for the first time since he existed, and looked in her direction.

“Look at you,” she said, eyes glinting with rapture. “Such a magnificent little thing you are.” Her eyes followed him as he stumbled his way up onto his feet, and then dragged himself along towards her, standing right below her and craning his neck to look at her. She was just too far out of his reach and they both knew it, even with her legs dangling tauntingly.

She sighed, held her cigarette between her lips. Ash burned brightly like a fire from its tip. She reached for something out of view, seeming to eye it for several moments, and then she threw it down to him.

A severed arm rolled on the floor a few feet away from him. Klaus looked between it and her, but the scent of fresh blood was dizzying and he turned quickly and fell to his knees by it. Though obviously not still alive, it was still warm. Blood ran hot down his throat, and flesh tore between his teeth and it felt like heaven, as if he had just been saved from a painful, long death of starvation; like a hit of pure heroin running through his veins.

Then the woman was standing in front of him again, watching him as he ate.

She crouched down, ran her thumb along his bottom lip, staining it with blood, and then sucked it clean. “I don’t think I quite get the appeal of how it tastes, but I’m happy enough to just watch you,” she said. Her head nodded towards the half-arm still in his grasp. “Go on. Don’t let me stop you.”

She was alive and he was so hungry; he would need more than a single arm. But he would finish that first before turning his attention to her, so he obliged, and he kept eating, and she kept watching, with a glint in her eyes.

He stopped just above the fingers and looked up at her, shifting slightly. A drop of blood ran down his chin. When he sat upright a little, her hand snatched out and gripped his jaw tightly.

“I gave you that,” she said in reference to the arm. “Don’t forget it. You can’t get the jump on me, oh no. Now.” She let go, dipping her hands into her pockets, and pulled out a cloth and a small bottle of water. She wet the cloth and then began to clean the blood off his face and neck, a little roughly, and then did the same for his hands. She stood, putting the cloth and water away, and plucked the remainders of her gift from the floor. Her feet kicked dust and dirt over the splatters of blood on the floor to hide them and she grinned down at Klaus, shifting her grip on her briefcase.

“If you’re a good little thing, I’ll bring you more. Understand?”

And he did, sort of. The food was enough to let his mind understand the statement but little more, but it was enough if it meant there would be more.

He blinked and she disappeared.

###

She didn’t keep her promise.

Someone else dropped something in with him, with a frown rather than a grin, and the vulture flapped its wings pitifully and squawked in pain and it couldn’t run or fly away from him, nor could it fight. It tasted rancid and the feathers were a bother and he felt sick after it, so the next time that person dropped one in with him, he let it die writhing on the ground by itself and left it untouched.

And then he was alone, and he didn’t exist again, except there was something between his teeth and he realised, distantly, that it was his own wrist, and though it was cold and bitter on his tongue his teeth ached and his throat burned dry and he kept biting, kept trying to find a spot that would be different.

And then he wasn’t alone.

“Oh,” mused the woman, not shocked and not afraid and not disgusted and not worried. Maybe pleased, maybe intrigued at the sight that laid out in front of her.

His body screamed to rush her, to sink his teeth into her and sate the void in his stomach, but she was red lips and platinum hair and shark eyes and that meant if she was there, she ought to give him something anyway. His teeth pushed deeper through his own arm to stop himself from lunging at her, to wait, at least, to see what might happen. She crouched nearby him, eying the torn flesh of his right arm, watching the blood run from the punctures freshly made by his teeth, watched as he bit down even harder until his teeth hit something hard. She watched with an expression one might wear when watching a cute baby suck their thumb.

She came closer, rested a hand on his cheek and peered close to watch his eyes widen and unfocus at the touch, and she was so close and so warm. His own arm fell from his mouth and his head snapped to the side; his teeth closed around her wrist and-

Something pressed into his chest and there was white-hot fire, it blinded him, coated him, devoured him until there was nothing but white-hot everywhere and if he screamed, then he didn’t realise it, but he was gasping and twitching when he found his body again. The woman, for the first time, wore a scowl, and in her hand she held something that, with the press of a button, conjured electricity between two prongs, and she had pressed it into him.

“I told you,” she grit out. “To be good. Do you want to starve? Did you think it was bad before, in that silly little cage in the Academy? I can make it a hundred times worse, you hear me?”

He heard her, though the words hardly made much meaning. She pressed the button on the thing in her hand and it crackled to life and he jerked away, a strangled noise coming from his throat. She raised her eyebrows, paused and simply watched him, watched his reaction. And then she pressed it into his leg.

He found that he couldn’t move his body when he came back to himself. His face was hostage between her hands as she forced him to look in her direction – he couldn’t quite make his eyes focus on her. When he realised it was her touching him, he instinctively tried to jerk away, anticipating pain, but his body felt fried from the last hit, still scattered out of his reach, twitching and trembling faintly as if still being electrocuted. Even if he couldn’t move, though, she must have seen the panic or fear in his eyes, and it made her grin.

“I think you understand now,” she murmured, stroking his cheek. “But actions don’t come without punishment, dear.”

His head was placed down onto the ground and she stood, watching him, and then she was gone.

###

Frowning, muttering siblings, peering over the wall.

“I’m working on it,” insisted the brunette. “I just need time – we can get him fixed when we get home. But we can’t do anything for him here.”

“Oh, god,” muttered the woman, the taller one. Her voice made him curious, but she didn’t have red lips, so he didn’t bother paying attention to her.

“This is bullshit,” muttered the one with the knives. They kept speaking, but Klaus zoned out. He brought his hand to his mouth, and he bit.

###

The woman returned during a night, and Klaus lifted his head when her heartbeat approached, but then dropped it when his body remembered the blinding pain that she could inflict. She crouched beside him like usual, slid her hand beneath his cheek and tilted his head up off the floor to look at her.

“Look at the state of you,” she said with a pout. “It’s terrible. If you had been good last time, I could have stopped this. Do you understand?”

He didn’t, but he nodded anyway just to please her.

She had a bag with her and she reached into it. From it she pulled a severed arm like the first time, and she set it down beside him and then took a step back. She grinned, nodded to it, and Klaus jumped at it with the desperation of a mad man.

Like before, she watched him eat with fascination, and when he was done she took the remains and dropped them back in the bag. She reached out, hands holding either side of his face, thumbs stroking his cheekbones, and she smiled sympathetically. “There’s nothing at all going on behind those pretty eyes, is there?” She commented, and Klaus blinked and hoped she wouldn’t hurt him; hoped she might be kind enough to feed him more. It took his poor willpower to not lunge for her, though he was mostly motivated not to attack her for the fear of that blinding pain again.

She bared her teeth in a grin at his reaction, or lack thereof, and squeezed his cheek. “You’re still hungry, aren’t you?” She asked, and that, Klaus could understand. He nodded; inhaled through his nose, the strong smell of copper on his skin and under hers.

“If you come with me,” she said, “I’ll get you more. How’s that sound?”

He went to nod before a part of him paused, a slip of slight coherency, and he looked to the blocked-off doorway nearby.

“You’ll only hurt your siblings,” she said, drawing his attention back to her. “You’ll get out one day and I won’t be here to help. Five isn’t going to get you home any time soon. You’ll break out of here and you’ll hunt them down mindlessly. But I can help you.”

Klaus blinked, trying and struggling to process what she said.

And then he nodded.

Her grin widened victoriously and she stood up, moving her hands from his face to his arms to pull him onto his feet too. She paused, eying the filled in doorway, and then she wandered over and pushed it apart; if he wanted, he could walk out now. Gathering her stuff, she set a hand on his shoulder as he swayed, and then she opened her briefcase and the world fell apart into ash.

###

They appeared on a pavement. Klaus tumbled to the ground as they crashed into the timeline, head spinning, and then the woman was tugging him back up. He looked around the place with wide eyes, overwhelmed by the sound of heartbeats surrounding him, the sight of people wandering around. They gave curious glances to him and the woman, wide-eyed like himself, and then they hurried away.

The woman clamped a hand on the back of his neck, grinning. “Change of scenery, I know, it’s surprising,” she commented, and began to push him in the direction of one building. “We’re going to get you cleaned up and set up and if you’re _good_ for me, then I’ll get you something fresh to eat. Got it?”

Klaus tore his eyes away from the nearest living person and forced himself to nodded.

They marched through a building that had him trembling, overwhelmed and disoriented, but the hand on the nape of his neck kept urging him forwards. When they stepped into an empty room he had to exhale relief and looked to the woman for reassurance with wide-eyes, and she grinned at him.

“Just a little longer,” she hummed. “But we need to get you cleaned up; you’re filthy.”

Klaus looked around and realised they were in a bathroom. He blinked and she nudged him, eyebrows raised. “Go on, strip, the shower’s there.” She leaned forwards, opened the door of the shower cubicle, reached in and turned the water on. “Go in and clean yourself off.”

She nudged his back and then stepped towards the mirror, checking out her lipstick. Robotically, Klaus fumbled out of his clothes and stepped under the water, tilting his face up into it. Dust, dirt and blood ran down the drain and he watched it swirl hypnotically.

“Cute thing you are indeed.”

He startled at the voice, peering over his shoulder to stare at her, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. The woman leaned against the wall, unashamedly staring at him, and she raised her eyebrows as if to challenge his gaze. She tapped her chin.

“You’ve still got blood around your mouth,” she said, so he turned his face to the water and scrubbed it away. When she seemed satisfied, she reached around him, turning off the water in the shower, and then pushed a towel against his chest.

Then she held out a bundle of clothes, grinning, and it took him longer than it should to be able to get them on. When he was done, the hand settled back on his neck and guided him out.

“So, of course, you’ll be staying with me,” the woman said, guiding him through winding corridors that made him feel dizzy. “I need to be able to keep an eye on you, but maybe in the future you can get a room to yourself here. Depends how good you are.”

Klaus didn’t know why he needed a room or even where he was, but he simply nodded. They turned a corner; the hallways got quieter, less busy, thankfully, and he could breathe again. She unlocked a set of double doors at the far end of the hallway and they opened out to a large office. She led him to the back of it, opened another door, and nudged him through, and into what might look like a studio apartment. It was large and spacious, with a sitting area, an open kitchen, and, in the corner, with curtains separating it from the rest of the apartment, what served as a bedroom. She pulled the curtains back to show a luxurious double canopy bed, a wardrobe and a dresser with a large mirror, and windows by the bed overlooked a courtyard and garden.

Near the bed, Klaus noticed a single mattress on the floor, with a pillow and a blanket set atop it. Above it on the wall was a hook, and attached to the hook was a short chain, and attached to the short chain was a collar that rested perfectly on the pillow.

“This is our place!” Said the woman, clapping her hands down on Klaus’ shoulders. “I think you made an excellent choice. I know your siblings will appreciate it.”

Klaus had forgotten about them. It was hard to understand whatever was going on around him; mind slowly slipping from his fingertips, snapped back whenever she spoke or touched him. He hardly truly even realised the change in scenery.

She guided him over to the mattress near her bed, urging him to sit down on it, and she knelt beside him. “I just know we’re going to get along so well already. Look at you – you learn so quickly! Though it’s really quite simple; if you’re good, you get good things.” Her hands reached to the pillow, lifting the leather collar and undoing the buckle on it. “If you’re bad,” she said, looking up to meet his eyes. She slipped the collar around his neck; tightened it there, locked it in place, and grinned. “You get bad things.”

Her hand moved from the thick collar resting snug around his neck to cup his cheek, stroking his cheekbone.

He had been good, he thought. He had been good, and he was starving.

“You look so pretty when you have no idea what’s going on,” she commented with a fond sigh. She patted his cheek. “Don’t worry. You’ll learn to like it here. I think we’ll have a lot of fun together.”

Klaus’ shoulders slumped in exhaustion. He had done what she wanted. He was starving. That thing that hurt him rested on the belt on her hip, right in his sight, like a warning.

Klaus’ eyes fell closed. Her heartbeat roared in his ears, and her grin was burned onto the backs of his eyelids.

Distantly, Klaus wondered why he was here, and if he would see his siblings soon, and if he had been good enough to get to eat. He wondered where Dave was.

Then he wondered nothing at all, letting himself slip away to avoid the insatiable hunger in his stomach.

In the apocalypse, Diego stared at the ruins of the doorway and said, “shit.”

Five stared further than that, grit his teeth, and wasn’t convinced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> … whoops...  
> Anywho, thus ends this fic, but perhaps not the series, so feel free to subscribe to the series to be notified to any new additions to it, and please let me know what you thought of this! Thank you all for reading! <3


End file.
